


Show up in Shining Colors

by thepartyresponsible



Series: Do Every Stupid Thing [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Idiots in Love, M/M, References to Depression, Saving the World, Team as Family, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-06-11 13:16:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 65,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15316296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepartyresponsible/pseuds/thepartyresponsible
Summary: Thor stands up. He’s bigger than Jason remembers, and Jason’s not thrilled about that, but he squares off in his direction anyway. “Loki,” Thor says, “will face Asgardian justice for--”“Your Asgardian justice,” Jason says, “can blow every citizen of this green earth."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth and final full-length fic in the _Do Every Stupid Thing_ verse. It's time to add a few blondes to the team. 
> 
> POV will switch a few times throughout, since we now officially have too many characters and too many problems to stick solely to Jason's POV.

                Coulson calls Bucky on a Thursday and says, “You need to come in.”

                Bucky’s in the middle of a mission, playing sniper while Nat lures in the bait, and it’ll put Nat in danger, disappearing like that. “When?” Bucky asks, because Coulson wouldn’t risk any of them if he could avoid it.

                He doesn’t ask what’s happened. He doesn’t ask if Tony’s been hurt, or Jason, or Clint. It’ll only clutter his head.

                “Immediately,” Coulson says. “I’m sending you the rendezvous point. A car will pick you up in twenty minutes.”

                “Twenty--” Bucky cuts himself off. His pulse damn near doubles, and he takes a deep, centering breath. _Twenty minutes_. That kind of expedited timeline screams emergency. Phil Coulson is a measured, deliberate man; he doesn’t move fast unless he has to.

                “No one’s been hurt,” Coulson says. There’s an odd note to his voice. _He’s excited_ , Bucky realizes. “Agent Barnes, you’ll want to be here for this.”

 

 

 

                They show him Steve, packed in ice. For a second, his heart stops in his chest.

                “Stevie,” he says, soft, disbelieving. “ _Steve_.”

                “We think so,” Nick Fury says. His voice is edged with something like skepticism, and, under that, eagerness. “Either it’s him, or it’s a clone.”

                “That’s him,” Bucky says, reflexively, and then he swallows, nods. He knows better. He’s _learned_ better.

                He takes several long, controlled steps forward and holds himself steady, just out of reaching distance. He wants to dig his fingers in the ice and rip it away from him. He wants to fight everyone in this room.

                He studies Steve until he’s sure. “It’s him,” he says. He’d know him anywhere; he’d know him in a crowd of clones. “That’s Steve.”

                He hadn’t thought about what it would mean, getting the body back. He didn’t know it would feel like this, some terrible combination of a weight lifted off his shoulders and a hand closing around his throat. It would be easier, probably, if he weren’t so perfectly preserved.

                Bucky’s eyes trace down Steve’s face, to his hands, to the uniform they put him in when they made him Captain America, and he gets flashes of Brooklyn, and Germany, and childhood.

                He’s not sure the world was worth this. He’s damn sure the world hadn’t earned Steve by the time it lost him.

                “He’s not dead.” Coulson’s tone is careful, kept meticulously blank. Not an encouraging prognosis, then. But Bucky thinks, if death were certain, Coulson wouldn’t have brought him in until after it was over.

                Coulson’s not weak; he never coddles them. But he’s merciful, when he can be.

                Bucky takes a breath. He doesn’t think about Steve, frozen, underwater. He doesn’t think about himself, frozen, underground. He doesn’t think about anything.

                He makes himself ask the question. “What are his odds of survival?”

                “Unknown,” Coulson says. “We don’t know how he’s still alive. We can’t guarantee he’ll stay that way.”

                Bucky nods. His right hand reaches out, and he lays his fingers against the ice, feels the bite of the cold set in almost immediately. _Steve_ , he thinks. _Steve, I left you down there._

                He left him down there for years.

                Fury clears his throat. “When he wakes up--”

                “ _If_ he wakes up, Director,” Coulson says, calm and polite but just a little sharp. There’s that mercy. Coulson, hedging bets, controlling expectations. Trying to protect Bucky, and, through that, the rest of the team.

                “Yeah, fine, _if_ he wakes up,” Fury says. “ _If_ he wakes up, we want you with him. A familiar face should help ease him into things.”

                There is a chance that Steve will wake up. There’s a chance that Bucky will get him back.

                Bucky feels the ice beneath his fingers start to melt. He wishes Tony were here, or Jason. He’s glad they aren’t.

                “Alright,” he says. “Yes.”

                “We’ve been thinking,” Coulson says, “that we should introduce him to the things slowly. We’re converting one of the exam rooms so it’ll imitate what he’s expecting. We could use your help with some of the details. We have very limited staff who were even alive in the 1940s, much less--”

                “No,” Bucky says, immediately. He laughs, staring down at Steve’s face, imagining the catastrophe that would manifest if Steve woke up and thought he was being lied to, thought Hydra was trying to gaslight him. “No,” he says, “he’d bring the whole building down. Don’t lie to Steve. He doesn’t like it.”

                There’s some hesitation behind him. He clocks it, but doesn’t pay much attention. They’ll do what he says. He’s not the only expert on Captain America, but he’s sure as hell the reigning authority on Steve Rogers.

                “Okay,” Coulson says. “If you think that’s best.”

               

 

 

                Out of the ice, Steve looks younger than the last time Bucky saw him. Bucky remembers that last moment, when he was falling and Steve was reaching, hanging half out of a moving train and _screaming_. Steve had looked like a child, bawling like that. But war makes men out of every boy it touches, and that war is long over.

                He’s beautiful. Every nurse who comes in double-takes at him, every time.

                When Tony comes in, it’s like he doesn’t see Steve at all. He side-steps the nurse checking the readouts and settles into the chair beside Bucky with a troubled frown on his face and a focused look in his eyes, and he doesn’t even _look_ at Steve. Not once.

                “Hey,” he says. “Sorry. There was a civilian flight with engine trouble.” He leans forward, eyes narrowing on Bucky’s face. “How’re you doing with all this?”

                “Do you have the clearance to be here?” Bucky asks. That’s a tactic he’s learned from Tony and Jason. Back in the 40’s, he didn’t have much use for deflection. As the Winter Soldier, it was a bad habit Hydra trained out of him early.

                “I found him,” Tony says. “Or my bots did. SHIELD authorized the mission, but it was my tech that made it happen. So, as usual, I have exactly as much clearance as I want.”

                Bucky feels his mouth hook up into a smile. “Fury loves it when you say that.”

                “ _Hey_ ,” Tony says, and his hand curls around Bucky’s, fingers tight around the metal. “Look at me, Barnes.”

                Bucky’s eyes slide sluggishly away from Steve and settle on Tony’s worried face. “It’s alright,” he says. “This is good news. Even if he doesn’t make it, at least now we can bury him right.”

                Tony studies him for a long moment. “Shit,” he says, finally, like it’s some kind of conclusion. “We’ve gotta get Jason here.”

                Bucky looks back toward Steve. “Jason doesn’t have clearance,” he says, after a moment.

                Tony huffs. “I know you don’t exactly appreciate that his clearance level is higher than yours, Buck, but---”

                “ _I_ don’t have clearance for this,” Bucky says. “Coulson barely has clearance for this. And, anyway, he’s busy. They put Jason on the mission with Natasha.”

                “They took Jason off that security job?” Tony makes a soft, disapproving hum in the back of his throat. He never likes it when SHIELD splits the team, but he gets particularly anxious whenever anyone’s working alone.

                “Barton’s fine,” Bucky says. “It’s a research facility. There haven’t been any problems.”

                Jason’s been complaining about it, actually. He gets bored easily, especially when SHIELD has him babysitting some bizarre alien tech. Apparently, a childhood in Gotham left him fundamentally incapable of being impressed by alien anything. He used to keep a chunk of kryptonite in his locker until someone – probably whoever lost a bet down in R&D – stole it.

                Jason also has a categorical dislike of anything he can’t tell Tony about, and the work at the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility is locked-down so tight that even Bucky doesn’t know what, exactly, they’re researching over there.

                “Yeah,” Tony says, “you don’t bring in someone like Eric Selvig because you’re building a better toaster oven.”

                Tony isn’t supposed to know about personnel changes at JDEM. But Tony’s probably not supposed to know about Steve, either.

                “Sorry,” Bucky says. He’s not sorry. He’s not anything. Steve keeps stealing his focus, and he can’t track of the conversation. “Can go check on Barton, if you’re worried.”

                “No,” Tony says, after a short pause. His hand tightens around Bucky’s, and Bucky’s concentration is broken, finally, because he’d completely forgotten Tony was touching him at all. “I think I’m needed here.”

 

 

 

                There’s a jarring, unexpected development, where Coulson shows up in the med room, and says he has to leave. “There’s been an incident,” Coulson says. “At JDEM. I have to go.”

                “What is it?” Tony asks, already on his feet. “Is Barton--?”

                “Not an accident,” Coulson says, hands up, pacifying. “Just a bit of an unexpected occurrence. No one’s been hurt.”

                Beside him, Bucky can feel Tony tensing up. He wonders how much Tony knows about that facility. He wonders if he should be worried about Clint.

                “Yeah,” Tony says, “there’s no way in hell you’d leave now if there weren’t some serious shit happening. I’ve seen your Captain America trading cards, Coulson.”

                Coulson smiles, and Bucky can read his body language. He knows there’s something wrong. He should leave. He should go check on things, make sure Barton’s safe. It’s what Jason would do, if he were here.

                “I have to go,” Coulson says. “And Bucky needs to stay here.”

                “You want an escort?” Tony asks. “I can---”

                “No, thanks,” Coulson says. “I should be back by morning. Do me a favor?” It’s wrong, that Coulson’s asking Tony. Tony isn’t even SHIELD. Bucky’s the reliable soldier. It should be him. But it isn’t. “Keep an eye on things, Stark,” Coulson says, as he moves toward the door. “I can’t put out two fires at once.”

                “Bullshit,” Tony says, as he watches Coulson walk to the door. “You love the excitement. It makes you feel needed.”

               

 

 

                It’s the middle of the night, and Steve’s temperature keeps climbing toward normal. Tony’s been asleep for an hour, head tipped against Bucky’s shoulder.

                Bucky’s tracking the slow return of color to Steve’s face. He keeps telling himself not to hope, but he can’t contain it. There’s a whole universe cracking open in his chest, something so hungry and expansive that it might devour everything in its way.

                There’s a thought that hits, unexpected, unwelcome. _If he wakes up_ , he thinks, _he’s going to ask how long he was asleep. He’s going to ask where I was. He’s going to ask what I’ve done._

                He never made his peace with the Winter Soldier. He caged him and contained him, carved him up and harvested what was useful.

                Steve Rogers, he thinks, would have died a dozen times before he let anyone make him into a monster.

                “I gotta,” Bucky says, standing up, dislodging Tony. “I gotta—Tony, I can’t.”

                He leaves, but there’s some kind of leash holding him to Steve. He makes it exactly as far as the hallway, and then he gets his back to a wall and slides to the floor, wraps his arms around his head like someone’s going to cut their way inside.

                “Buck,” Tony says. Bucky can feel his hands on him. It’s disorienting, feeling the warmth of Tony after spending hours thinking about all that ice around Steve. “Shit,” Tony says, “Buck, c’mon.”

                Bucky takes a deep breath. His brain gives him the sensation of drowning, salt water and pressure, panic.

                He thinks about how long it would have taken. He knows exactly how long he can go without air. Hydra ran extensive tests. Steve, though. Steve got Erskine’s formula, the real thing. God only knew how much time the serum gave him, how long he had to fail to save himself, how long it took him to fade out.

                “Buck,” Tony says, tugging Bucky forward until they’re pressed together, curled up in a SHIELD hallway, no doubt being monitored by half a dozen cameras as some senior agents debate whether or not to intervene.

                “Steve saved me,” Bucky says, soft so maybe the mics won’t pick it up. It’s not that he cares, really, if Coulson hears it, eventually. But Fury uses weaknesses like contingency plans, and Bucky doesn’t want this one coming back.

                “The first time Hydra took me,” Bucky says, “Steve saved me. He defied orders, damn near got himself killed coming after me. So the second time they took me, I told myself—it didn’t make any sense, but I believed in him so much. I _knew_ he’d come get me. I kept thinking, ‘Just hold on a little longer. He’s gonna be here soon.’”

                Bucky can taste the memories: copper and iron, bile and ice, the blinding shock of electricity, the lightning bite of frigid water. His hands are shaking with a cold he hasn’t felt in years. He curls them around Tony’s ribs, lets the heat settle into him.

                “It didn’t work,” he says. “All the things they did to me, it didn’t take. Because I knew Steve was coming, and I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me, when he got there.”

                Tony doesn’t say anything, just pulls him in until the arc reactor catches against Bucky’s chest. Bucky presses his face into the crook of his neck, breathes in the machine and coffee smell of him, doesn’t let himself slip any further into a past that needs to be released, not relived.

                “They told me he was dead, showed me newspapers. I didn’t believe it. I thought it was a cover-up. I thought-- if you’d seen him then, you wouldn’t believe it either. But then, I started to think, if he’s not dead, where is he? He should’ve been here by now, and, one day, I knew. I knew he was dead. And neither of us was supposed to outlive the other, so I just…gave up.”

                Tony makes a hurt noise and curls his hands tighter around Bucky’s arms. “Buck,” he says, “you were tortured. It’s not-- you can’t--”

                “No,” Bucky says, because Tony’s caught up on the wrong part of this. “I gave up on him,” he says, “and this whole damn time, _he_ needed _me_. He was under the ice, alive, and I let them turn me into the kinda man we would’ve killed together, and he _needed me_.”

                “Bucky,” Tony says, hooking his fingers under Bucky’s chin, forcing his head up, “you didn’t let them do a Goddamn thing. And if he’s not a complete fucking idiot, he’s not gonna think that you did.”

                “He won’t,” Bucky says. He knows he won’t. He lets his head fall back against the wall. “Christ, Tony, he never would.”

                That, he thinks, is the worst part of all of this. Bucky knows the second Steve hears the litany of Bucky’s sins, he’s going to forgive him for all of them.

                And, meanwhile, there’s some hurt, hateful, cowardly part of Bucky that wishes he’d never, ever known Steve Rogers was still alive under all that ice.

                Tony sighs and settles back. There’s a miserable look on his face, focused and anxious, assessing. “Bucky,” he says, and then his phone goes off. “Shit,” he says, grimacing, “it’s Coulson.”

                Tony hesitates with the phone in his hands, looking to Bucky.

                Bucky closes his eyes for a second and then nods. Tony takes the call and climbs to his feet, hand curling briefly around Bucky’s shoulder on his way up.

                “Sleeping Beauty’s still asleep, Agent, so if you’re calling--- oh.” Tony breaks off, which is how Bucky knows it’s bad. There’s not a lot in this world that can keep Tony from making a joke. “What,” Tony says, flat, and then again, “ _What_.”

                And that’s how Bucky knows it’s _very_ bad. He gets a slideshow of faces – Clint, then Nat, then Jason – and he thinks it’s bullshit, it’s shit-poor luck, it is callous and unfair. It’s unforgivable, if the universe hands him Steve and takes one of the others as its due.

                But there’s nothing to do. He’s learned that, over time. You take the hit when it lands.

                He gets his feet under him and stands, gets braced for it.

                Tony slides the phone into his pocket and looks slowly over to Bucky. He’s pale, face twisted in a way that leans harder toward confusion than pain. “It’s Barton,” he says. “He’s been compromised.”

                Barton is faithful as a pound-rescued puppy. If Bucky made a list of people most likely to turn against SHIELD, he’d put Coulson higher than Clint, and he’d put the entire rest of the team above the pair of them.

                But Bucky knows, better than most, that loyalty is a luxury afforded to people who can make their own decisions.

                “I’m going,” Tony says. “Are you coming with me?”

                Bucky pauses. His eyes dart toward the door that leads to Steve’s room, and he’s not a traitor, not yet, but he already feels like one.

                Tony smiles, and it’s sad, but there’s not a single scrap of anger in it. “Buck,” he says, “there’s no wrong choice.”

                It feels, instead, like there’s no _right_ one.

                “Barton’s got you,” he says, “and Coulson.” And all Steve has in this century is Bucky.

                “Okay,” Tony says. He moves forward and kisses him, brief and sweet, familiar. Grounding. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll bring the kid home.”

                Iron Man’s always been better at rescue missions anyway.

                Still, when Tony leaves, Bucky can’t shake the feeling that he made the wrong choice, that he belongs with him, that he owes Barton more than this. But he thinks, if he’d gone, he would’ve felt the same damn way about Steve.

 

 

 

                Tony’s been gone for an hour when Steve starts waking up. Bucky remembers the signs, from a lifetime of sleepovers and shared rooms and half-burned barns in Europe. Steve’s face tightens up, and his fingers twitch toward his palms, and then, suddenly, without enough warning, his eyes blink open, and he’s staring right at Bucky.

                “Bucky?” he says, in his voice, the one Bucky had started to forget, one of the few he’d know anywhere, could identify in one syllable or less.

                “Hey, Stevie,” Bucky says, staring, re-familiarizing himself with the precise shade of Steve’s blue eyes.

                The machines are reporting this; the cameras in the room are probably livestreaming the whole thing to any interested agent with the clearance to watch. But right now it feels like it used to, like it’s just him and Steve, alone, a unit standing together against the rest of the world.

                Without giving himself any damn time to settle into his skin, Steve starts moving. He sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and then he hesitates. Bucky watches it happen. The realization, the confusion, and then the doubt, the suspicion. Steve’s eyes dart around the room and then back to Bucky, track down his body, snag on the arm.

                Steve swallows. He hesitates. When he looks at Bucky’s face again, there’s a kind of horror that could kick into grief or fury at any moment.

                “It’s okay,” Bucky says. He stands up, and Steve doesn’t flinch, but he tenses, a little.

                That’s fair. Steve went into the ice decades ago and woke up in the wrong century, with someone wearing his best friend’s face but missing an arm, dressed wrong, hollowed out in new ways.

                “Your mom’s name was Sarah,” he says, pulling at the threads that have always stitched them together. “You used to wear newspaper in your shoes, and you couldn’t go five damn minutes without starting a fight.”

                Steve goes still. His eyes narrow on Bucky’s face, and his hands tighten around the rail on his bed so hard that the thing warps in his hands. “Buck,” he says, like it hurts, “you were dead. I watched you fall.”

                Bucky smiles. He can’t help it. He’s been fixing Steve Roger’s problems his whole life, and here’s Steve, carrying all that grief and guilt, and he doesn’t deserve an ounce of it.

                “Pal,” he says, stepping closer, gambling on Steve believing that he is who he looks like, “you’ve been asleep for a long damn time.”

                “ _Buck_ ,” Steve says. He lurches to his feet, capsizes thousands of dollars of medical equipment, and he wraps his arms around him, tight and almost desperate, like he needs an anchor.

                Bucky holds on just as tight. His metal arm feels wrong, in a way it hasn’t for years now, but he holds on anyway. Steve doesn’t shake, never falters, but there’s a catch in his breath as he runs a hand slowly down the metal of Bucky’s arm.

                “Buck,” he says, “what the hell happened?”

                Bucky laughs, and he hates the sound of it. It gives too Goddamn much away. Steve pulls back immediately, jaw setting, shoulders tensing. Show Steve Rogers any kind of weakness, and he’ll make himself into a shield to protect you from it.

                Bucky doesn’t want to talk about his arm, or Hydra, or what the hell happened or where the hell he’s been. Tony and Jason and Clint and Natasha and Coulson, they all took him with the understanding of who he was. They saw the ugliest parts of him, and they accepted them, as a reasonable price to pay for all the other things he could offer.

                But Steve, he grew up with the very best of Bucky Barnes, bright and shining, young and unhurt and brave. Uncorrupted, naïve. Whole.

                Bucky wants to protect him – just a little, for just a little while – from all of the things he’s become.

                Or maybe he just wants to protect himself.

                Either way, there’s only one way to distract Steve from any kind of fight. Bucky has to hand him another one.

                “Hey,” he says, thinking about Clint, about Tony, about how Steve deserves five centuries of rest, and Bucky can’t even give him five seconds. “You want to help me with something?”


	2. Chapter 2

                Jason’s in Russia, crouched in the rafters of an abandoned factory, watching some idiots smack Nat around. Technically, Jason should be across the street with a sniper rifle, but Coulson had cobbled this job together fast, swapped Jason in for Bucky, and that sort of improvisation suggests there’s shit happening back home that the two of them should be around to deal with.

                Coulson’s being pretty closed-mouth about whatever’s happening, but Jason’s worked with him for nearly a decade. At this point, he knows Phil’s tells better than he ever knew Bruce’s.

                A job run by Bucky and Nat is a smooth, clandestine, silent operation, with no churn and no bodies, no front page news. But job run by Nat and Jason is, more often than not, a Goddamn bloodbath. 

                If Coulson wanted this done quick and quiet, he would’ve left Bucky or called in Clint. Sending Jason means he wants it done _fast_. And fast is a request, however subconscious, that Jason is happy to honor.

                Nat, for her part, is clearly onboard with the plan. If she weren’t trying to finish things quickly, ready to sacrifice style for efficiency, she’d never let them smack her across the face. That fat lip is going to cut her usefulness on soft-touch missions for a week or so, and God knows she’s the only one on the team who handles those with grace.

                The last time they sent Clint into a party, all bright-eyed and freshly-scrubbed, he’d hefted a Molotov cocktail halfway across some handsy banker’s bedroom, blown out every window in his high-rise apartment, and made his escape by skidding down the side of the building in charred formalwear, with a grappling arrow anchored to a recently-exposed steel beam and the stolen hard drive clutched in his teeth.

                Coulson had been exasperated and faintly horrified, but Jason had been so filled with pride he’d bought Clint’s beers for a month.

                God, he loves this team.

                “Red Hood,” Coulson says, voice breaking across the comms, disrupting the perfectly enjoyable show of watching Natasha wheedle information out of her trio of menacing Russians. “Status report.”

                “Oh, hey, Phil,” Jason says, keeping his voice low to avoid interrupting Nat’s work. “Thought you weren’t running this mission anymore.”

                “Mission’s over,” Phil says. “I need you two on another job.”

                Jason thinks that over a minute. Nearly ten years of work, and the number of active ops Coulson’s canceled or postponed in that time is in the single-digits. Usually, when it happens, there’s some kind of emergency, some bigger threat, some looming doom. He doesn’t like this urgency, not when it’s paired with the way they pulled Bucky off this job with twenty minutes of warning.

                “Nat’s kinda tied up at the moment,” Jason says, eyeing the ropes holding her to the chair. “You need us right now?”

                “Immediately,” Phil says.

                “Huh.” Jason likes this less and less. “Someone get shot again?”

                “Not yet,” Phil says, which has a certain foreboding air to it. Jason hears him breathe in, kinda sharp. Not like he’s hurt, exactly, but like he’s steadying himself, getting ready to step into enemy fire. “It’s Barton,” he says. “He’s been compromised.”

                “Bullshit,” Jason says. “Like, morally? Ethically? Is he in a compromising position? He and Robin get a little--”

                “He helped a hostile Asgardian steal the Tesseract from JDEM.”

                Jason can think of exactly five people Clint would betray SHIELD for. Four of them are on his team, and one of them is Tim Drake, who probably _could_ steal the Tesseract, if he wanted to, but damn sure wouldn’t rope Barton into it. They have a weird and occasionally fraught professional relationship, but they’re careful, the both of them, not to play each other against their teams.

                “Did this guy have a puppy at gunpoint?” Jason asks, just to clarify, to try to get himself grounded in whatever bizarre reality they’ve slipped into, where Clint Barton turns on SHIELD for a shiny piece of alien tech he doesn’t have the first idea how to use.

                “No,” Coulson says, and, this time, Jason can read the anger in his voice. “He has a scepter that controls people’s minds.”

                “Oh,” Jason says. “Mind control. Son of a bitch.”

                Bucky’s going to hate this one. And Nat. Shit, he’s going to have to tell Nat.

                He closes his eyes, finds the part of him that’s wobbling, wants to spit rage and rain bullets, and he turns it down to background noise. The Pit doesn’t give gifts; it makes trades. Sometimes, Jason still has to work to control all the rage the Pit gave him in exchange for his memories.

                As for the other things the Pit gave him, he mostly does his best not to think about them.

                “So,” Jason says, once he’s settled, “we’re hunting Barton, huh?”

                It’s gonna be a bitch. Barton is _sneaky_ when he wants to be, blends in almost anywhere, fades into the background and disappears. But Jason knows exactly how good his team is, and, if Tony’s running intel, they should have him back in a few days.

                “No,” Phil says. “We’re under attack.” Which is bullshit, because there’s all of SHIELD to be under attack, and one team whose responsibility has always been to look after each other.

                “Sure,” Jason says, instead of _Go fuck yourself, Phil_. “Probably better to be under attack _with_ Barton than _from_ Barton.”

                “Fury’s activated the Avengers protocol,” Coulson says.

                There’s another hit of anger, and Jason doesn’t do so well this time, can’t keep it out of his voice. “So fucking call Iron Man and tell him he’s in. Dig Bucky out of whatever bunker you shoved him in. Nat and I’ll be back when we’ve got Barton. What the fuck, Coulson? Some shithead steals space junk, and we’re panicking? Give me a day to---”

                “Your mission,” Phil says, insistent and a little severe, “is to bring in Bruce Banner.”

                Bruce Banner, with the big green rage problem. Bruce Banner, who can level city blocks and who has been off the gird for years and who is a civilian and who, most importantly, is not a member of their team.

                “Just to be clear, someone brain-wiped and _stole_ Hawkeye, and you want me to go recruit a liability with a hysteria problem?” Jason really should keep his voice down. Any louder, and even the idiots below are going to notice that this abandoned factory isn’t quite as abandoned as it should be. “Coulson, are you out of your fucking---”

                “We are under attack,” Phil repeats. “A hostile Asgardian stole the Tesseract, kidnapped Hawkeye and Eric Selvig, leveled a SHIELD facility, and incited mass panic in Metropolis.”

                “Metropolis?” Jason blinks, tries to figure out what the hell kind of trouble some Asgardian could mix up that Supes wouldn’t immediately put down. “The hell?”

                “It seems,” Coulson says, in a very measured, even tone, “that Kryptonians are vulnerable to Asgardian magic.”

                “Oh,” Jason says. He checks his guns reflexively, calms a little when his hands close around them. If they’re going to fight Superman, maybe he _does_ want a flailing green rage monster on the field. Would be nice, having something flashy to draw fire. “Shit.”

                “I have been assured,” Coulson continues, “that the situation is ‘unfortunate, but containable.’” Which means, Jason figures, that somewhere Wonder Woman and Superman are throwing each other through skyscrapers or mountains, and Bruce is huddled strategically behind cover, mixing up a kryptonite cocktail.

                “The Tesseract emits a weak Gamma radiation signal,” Coulson says. “We don’t know how to track that. But Bruce Banner--”

                “Got irradiated all to shit,” Jason says. “Right? That’s his whole thing, Gamma radiation.”

                “Yes,” Coulson says. “So, find Bruce Banner--”

                “And Banner finds our archer. Okay.”

                Jason’s not sure he buys it. Clint’s good, but the team is better as a whole than any of them are individually. This is SHIELD. This is Tony, and Bucky, and Nat; this is _them_ , their team.

                Jason doesn’t know why they’re bothering with Banner at all, except maybe Fury has backup green-tinted plans. But Coulson knows more about this magic-spinning Asgardian than Jason does. Maybe the alien’s good at hiding. Maybe the Gamma radiation really is the only trackable thing about him.

                “A transport crew is waiting outside the building,” Coulson says. “Finish your mission in whatever way you find most expedient.”

                “Sure,” Jason says, drawing his guns. It’ll be nice, he thinks, letting off a little of the aggression before he goes to fetch Banner.

                He’ll leave one, though, for Nat. She’ll need it even more than he does.

                “And tell Natasha,” Coulson says, “that Barton was not harmed, as far as we can tell. Last clear shot of him, he was uninjured.”

                “Yeah,” Jason says, staring down at Nat, who’s clever and controlled, running the op perfectly, unaware of what they’ve lost. “That’s really not gonna calm her down much.”

               

 

 

                An hour later, the transport crew is practically pissing themselves, because Natasha won’t stop prowling the length of the quinjet and then leaning into the cockpit, eyes on the controls, asking them, in a very calm, measured voice, if they’re absolutely _sure_ this can’t be hurried along a bit.

                Jason watches her long enough to be sure she won’t murder anyone, and then he calls Bucky. And, after that conversation spits up a series of question marks in his head, he calls Tony and says, “Hey, have you talked to Bucky? What the fuck is going on with him?”

                “Hm?” Tony hums into the phone. In the background, Jason can hear JARVIS’ reciting specifications. “Why, did you talk to him?”

                “Yeah, I talked to him,” Jason says, “and he called me _doll_.”

                “Lucky you,” Tony says, apparently unimpressed. “What, you’re complaining about pet names now? Does this mean I have to stop calling you gumdrop? Is sweet pea still a go?”

                Jason rolls his eyes. “He had an accent that entire conversation, Tony. I haven’t heard that much Brooklyn from him since the time he found out the Dodgers moved to L.A.”

                Tony makes a throaty noise of approval. “Oh, God, don’t remind me. I’m trying to focus.”

                “Damn it, Stark, _listen_ to me. Something’s wrong with Bucky. Did you build him a time machine or not?”

                “What?” Tony sounds startled, genuinely confused, and Jason breathes out, relaxes. “No, I didn’t build him a time machine. Are you still worried he’s gonna figure out how to go home and leave us?”

                “No,” Jason says. He doesn’t even feel bad about it. Tony clearly knows more than he’s sharing, so it’s not like Jason’s the only liar in this conversation.

                “It’s not a time machine,” Tony says, after a brief, shifty pause. “It’s, uh. It’s just. It’s a thing.”

                “It,” Jason repeats, “is a _thing_.”

                “Whoops,” Tony says. “DUM-E, put that down. Put that down _right_ —shit. Gotta go, sugar tits.” And then he hangs up, with no further explanation, and Jason sits there, reflecting on how _both_ of his boyfriends are keeping some bullshit secret from him.

                And thinking about boyfriends and secrets prompts him to finally make the phone call he’s been avoiding since he and Natasha left the factory, with three dead Russians inside.

                He sighs and dials, and he’s not the least bit surprised when Drake picks up midway through the first ring. “Where is he,” Drake says, spitting it out so fast and flat that it isn’t even really a question.

                “Yeah,” Jason says, “hey there, Robin, how’re you?”

                “Where,” Drake repeats, “is Hawkeye? Is he alive? What happened at--”

                “Okay,” Jason says, “shit. Calm down over there. He’s fine. He’s been a little brainwashed and force-recruited into some alien bullshit. We’re gonna get him back.”

                “Is this the alien that got to Superman?” Drake sounds like he’s already formed a pretty negative opinion of this particular alien.

                “Yep,” Jason says. “Looks like it.”

                “We can’t help you,” Drake says, which is real fucking sweet of him, given that Jason never _asked_. “Something’s gone wrong here. I called in Nightwing.”

                “Huh,” Jason says. There’s a lot in that sentence: _I called in Nightwing_. It indicates that Bruce is either AWOL or still dealing with Superman, indicates that Robin is running Gotham with Oracle and _maybe_ Steph, if she’s back on the roster after that injury. It indicates that Robin and Oracle and maybe Batgirl were not _enough_ to hold Gotham. It means that shit is bad enough that Tim Drake called Grayson home.

                It indicates that, if Jason’s team wasn’t a Goddamn mess right now, maybe they’d be heading up to Gotham themselves.

                “You idiots gonna be alright?” Things have been strained since Jason and Dick had that fight outside Stane’s house in California. He sees Drake more than he sees any of the others, and he only sees Drake when he’s with Clint.

                “Yes,” Drake says, immediately. “Be better,” he says, after a moment, “with Hawkeye back.”

                Jason doesn’t get Drake and Barton. Not really. What he has with Tony and Bucky is different, but he can see, sometimes, how it might all be different manifestations of the same thing. They’re happier together than they are apart. They’re better, as a unit, than they are as separate pieces.

                Jason can’t remember Tim Drake ever asking him for a Goddamn thing. It seems like that might be what he’s doing now.

                Tim Drake can’t leave Gotham to find Clint. But, hell, Jason was planning to get Barton back anyway.

                “Don’t worry, Bird Boy,” Jason says, eyes falling on Natasha, who’s crouched, gargoyle-like, entirely too close to the pilots. “I’ll bring him home.”

 

 

 

                It’s almost midnight in Kolkata, and Jason catches the girl as she jumps out of the window, swings her around and right into the waiting arms of her worried older brother, who tucks her up close, wraps a steadying arm around her, and holds his free hand out, expectant.

                The kid hadn’t ever been in real danger. Jason and Nat, they’d picked their lure carefully. Banner’s been playing saint, like that’ll somehow counteract his sins, and he was never any threat to the girl they sent to draw him here, with her fake story of a sick father. Nat’s the one in danger, alone in the empty shack with a walking landmine, but they’d picked that too.

                “I’ll do it,” Jason said, when he noticed she was anxious. Scared, maybe. It’s hard to tell. He doesn’t see either very often. “I’ll talk with Banner.”

                “No,” she’d said, as she fixed her hair, wiped off the red lipstick, carefully covered up the fat lip, and then applied lipgloss, something clear and shiny. “I’ll talk to him. He’ll see you as a threat.”

                She stripped out of her dress, changed into an ankle-length skirt and a shirt with a more modest neckline, grabbed a fucking shawl, like any of that was going to hide the muscles on her arms, the grace in her movements.

                _Well_ , Jason thought, _Banner **is** a civilian. Maybe it’ll work. _

                Anyway, Jason never had the knack for making himself seem innocuous. He damn sure can’t look pretty and vulnerable and non-threatening. He spent too much of his childhood trying to look like anything else.

                So Nat’s inside, sweet-talking Banner, and Jason’s outside, handing over the kind of money that can change two street kids’ lives, if it doesn’t get them killed first. He sends them on their way, hopes the older brother’s as smart as he seems, and then turns to watch through the window as Nat goes to work.

                Banner’s soft, nervous. He has the wary mannerisms of a stray cat, something that was loved once, but not enough. He’s edgy, his energy level ground down past exhausted even while his tension level keeps rising, and Jason wouldn’t trust him with a butter knife, much less a monster on a leash.

                Nat plays sweet. She’s all friendly smiles and tired eyes, clear, focused voice. She’s inviting him to help her, and someone like Banner should _want_ to.

                Banner says _I don’t every time get what I want_ with the amiable cynicism of someone who’s spent their whole life getting the opposite, and Jason would feel bad for him, maybe, but he was born in the same boat. And, anyway, it reminds him a little too much of the other Bruce, Gotham’s self-martyring prince.

                Some people have a real alarming tendency to nurse a wound so long it becomes their whole Goddamn life.

                Nat shows him a picture of the Tesseract on her phone, explains that its energy could destroy the whole planet, and that lights Banner up for the first time, catches his attention.

                “Fury,” Banner says, as he draws back, “is going to put me in a cage.”

                Like that’s not a reasonable reaction. Jason’s been watching him for two minutes, and he can already tell how dangerous he is. He should’ve been in a cage years ago. It would’ve saved lives.

                “No one’s going to put you in a cage,” Natasha says, sympathetic and comforting, trying to build a connection they can use. She leans forward to retrieve her phone, and Banner flips like a switch.

                He slams his hands down on the table, crowds forward, yells, “ _Stop lying to me_.”

                Natasha pulls a gun, levels it right at Banner’s face, and Jason’s through the window, clattering his boots hard against the floor, drawing attention away from Nat, who’s _shaking_.

                “Sorry,” Banner says. He smiles, small and stunted, halfway between a smirk and a grimace, and Jason damn near throws the table at him. He damn near throws the whole fucking _shack_ at him. “That was mean.”

                Across the room, Nat’s leveling out, eyes narrowed, hands still, but Jason can see the fear in her eyes. Somewhere, Barton’s being puppeted around by a magic alien, Bucky and Tony are hiding something from him, and Coulson’s keeping secrets, and this fucking irradiated doctor thinks he’s got jokes to share with the class.

                “You do that shit again,” Jason tells him, “and I don’t care who you change into when you’re grumpy. I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

                “Just you and me, huh?” Banner says, with a glance Nat’s direction. “How many agents are outside? Did you bring any tanks?”

                “Just me,” Jason says. The two of them can look after themselves. More boots would’ve meant more casualties.

                Banner sizes him up. There’s a weird look to him, a hollow kind of sadness. “You wouldn’t be enough,” he says. “Do either of you know what you’re asking for?”

                “Dr. Banner,” Natasha says, “we’re here for you. We need a Gamma radiation expert. You’re the best.”

                “Trust me, Dr. Jekyll,” Jason says. “If there was _anybody_ else, we’d be knocking on their door. Nobody wants your prima donna bullshit right now. We’re kind of having a crisis.”

                Banner blinks at him, mouth curling up in what might be the first genuine smile yet. “You’re charming,” he says. He looks like he almost means it.

                “You’re a fucking asshole,” Jason says, offering his own professional character assessment. “Now, are you gonna be a fucking asshole who goes to work, or not?”

                Banner hesitates. He looks at Nat, who slowly lowers her gun, and then at Jason, who holsters his own, and he sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “This won’t end well,” he says. It sounds like a well-worn statement, like the first line of a rosary.

                Jason rolls his eyes. “Cheer up, Eeyore,” he says. “It almost never does.”

 

 

 

                Later, when the same transport crew is even more wound-up because now they’re loading a pissed-off Natasha _and_ the Goddamn Hulk onto the plane, Nat comes sauntering up to ask what the hell Jason thinks he’s doing.

                “Yeah, sorry,” Jason says, popping open his comm unit so he can pry out the tracking chip with his thumbnail. “I get why Fury wants this guy, but there’s no guarantee Barton’s even with Loki. I’m going after him.”

                Natasha crosses her arms over her chest. “We should stay together,” she says. “We should be a team.”

                Jason snorts. “What the hell do you think I’m doing?” he asks, as he drops the tracking chip to the dirt. “We aren’t a team without him, Nat. I’m getting him back.”

                She stares at him, gauging the look on his face. After a beat, she nods. “Want me with you?”

                “No,” Jason says. He’d thought about it. But he’s headed to Talia after this, and Nat hates her, has been harboring dreams of murder for years now. “Something’s up with our team. Figure out what it is.”

                She tips her head to the side, considers him. And then she reaches out, hooks a hand around his shoulder, and squeezes, steady and steadying. “Check what you need to check,” she says, “and, if you can’t find him, come back. We’re gonna need you on this.”

                Jason imagines that’s true. He imagines, also, that they’re not the only ones.

                Gotham needs him, too. Tim Drake, and Dick Grayson, and Babs, and Alfred, and, hell, maybe even Bruce Wayne.

                But he got taken by a trickster once, and he remembers what that’s like. Remembers the blood, the pain, the laughter. Banner might be Barton’s best chance, but like hell is Jason going to rely on some stranger to save someone he’s responsible for.

                “I’ll bring him back,” he promises. “Or I’ll be back to figure out what the hell is taking Banner so long.”

                She nods. Her hand slips away from him and settles by her side. “Happy hunting.”

                Jason smirks and then turns his back on her, leaves quick. It’s weird, he thinks. It’s weird and alarming and maybe a little circumspect, how this is the exact minute they need to stand together, and they’re splintering apart, splitting up, chasing separate fires.

                _Fucking tricksters_ , he thinks, as he heads back into the city. Well, at least he’s had practice making them stop laughing.


	3. Chapter 3

                Steve’s standing on the flight deck of helicarrier, hands in his pockets, staring out at the water. He seems comfortable enough. Bucky thinks this, at least, must be some kind of familiar for him.

                “How’s he doing, Agent Barnes?” Coulson’s face is calm, his tone politely interested, but Bucky knows Steve wouldn’t be here unless they planned to send him to fight.

                He could stop it, maybe. Coulson respects him, would probably defer to his personal knowledge of the limits of Steve’s capacities. But Bucky’s never known Steve to walk away from any kind of fight. Whatever limits Steve’s courage has, they exist beyond the limits of his physical body.

                If he can walk, he can fight.

                Hell, if he can _crawl_ , he can fight.

                Bucky sighs. “It’s Steve,” he says, with a shrug. “He’ll be alright.”

                It’s better, probably. Better to hand him a fight right off, let him get some of that panic out of his system, let him work alongside the team before he gets to know them. There are parts of all of them that would make Steve balk. Natasha’s ruthlessness, Jason’s rage, Tony’s disregard for protocol.

                And then there’s Clint, who’s their longest serving SHIELD agent and still can’t manage to get half his paperwork done in time, who’s never met a mission briefing he couldn’t improve with puns, who ends every op, somehow, with food crumbs down the front of his tac vest. But Clint’s not here. And there’s a chance he won’t be back.

                “And what about you?” Coulson asks, tipping his head, assessing Bucky with a little more intensity than he appreciates. “You sure you’re good for this mission?”

                “Fine, sir,” Bucky says.

                Coulson considers him. Eventually, he nods, but he doesn’t seem fully committed to it. “I can’t bench you,” he says. “We need everyone on this.”

                “Not asking to be benched,” Bucky says. He watches as Steve turns, scans the deck for him. A smile catches at the corner of his mouth when he spots him, and Bucky returns it, reflexively.

                They are, the pair of them, almost a hundred years old. They deserve some peace. He guesses, like always, they’ll have to fight for it.

 

 

 

                When Natasha walks into the briefing, she’s got a brunette trailing after her, but it’s not the one Bucky was hoping to see. He blinks at Banner, who blinks back, nonplussed, and then Bucky turns to Natasha. “Where’s Jason?”

                Natasha raises her eyebrows. For a second, she doesn’t say anything, just stares, and then she looks pointedly at Steve. “Oh, hi, Captain,” she says, moving forward, hand outstretched, “Bucky didn’t mention he had a friend visiting.”

                “Agent Romanoff,” Steve says, because he’s been briefed, of course, on all of them. He shakes her hand and then reaches for Banner’s. “Dr. Banner.”

                “I’m sorry,” Bruce says, shaking his hand, going a little wide-eyed. “You’re Captain—who are you, exactly?”

                “Steve Rogers,” Steve says.

                “Captain America,” Natasha clarifies.

                “Right,” Bruce says, blinking. “I thought so.”

                “Don’t feel bad, Doctor,” Natasha says, aiming a bland look Bucky’s direction. “We’re all surprised to see him.”

                Bucky frowns. “Jason doesn’t have clearance--”

                “Oh, definitely tell him that. It’ll calm him right down.” Natasha’s not _wrong_. But she’s not being entirely fair, either.

                “I was going to tell him,” Bucky says. “As soon as he got here. I didn’t want—Nat, this is the sort of thing I should tell him in person.”

                “Right, of course,” Natasha says, flashing a grin sharp enough to snap Steve’s shoulders into a tight, perfect line. “When I catch my boyfriend with a gorgeous blonde, I _always_ want it to be a surprise.”

                “Tasha,” Bucky says, softly.

                “Wow,” Bruce says, a second later.

                Steve, for his part, doesn’t say a damn thing.

                He told Steve. He had to. It’s listed on all three of their SHIELD profiles. Emergency contacts, health care proxies. Significant others. He told Steve, in an empty meeting room Coulson carved out for their use for the four hours they had before transport, and Steve hasn’t said anything about it, except “Oh,” and then, five horrible seconds later, “Well, Buck, as long as you’re happy.”

                “We’ve all got issues, Barnes,” Natasha tells him, in that tone she uses when she’s trying to be helpful. “Try not to play into his while you’re indulging yours.”

                Bruce clears his throat, swipes his glasses off his face, and starts polishing them unnecessarily while studiously avoiding looking at anyone in the room.

                A second later, before Bucky can decide how to react, Coulson sweeps into the room with a tablet and a tight, concerned expression. “Agent Romanoff,” he says, as he steps past her chair, “you came back a little light.”

                Natasha tips her head toward Coulson but keeps her eyes on Bucky. “Sorry, sir. He’s trying to keep the team together.”

                “This is Red Hood?” Steve asks, breaking the tension. Steve read the profiles; he doesn’t need the hand-holding. He’s getting back into the heroing habit, drawing attention away from Bucky. “Jason Todd?”

                “Oh, he’ll love that,” Natasha says, with a smile. “You already know his name.”

                “He’s been given clearance on a probationary status,” Coulson says, as he takes a seat at the head of the table. “He’s Captain America, Natasha. I think he can be trusted.”

                Jason didn’t tell Bucky his name until they’d already known each other for days, had careened across half the U.S. in a stolen van together. Jason’s never cared much for protocol or clearance levels, but Bruce Wayne gave him all kinds of hang-ups about secrets.

                “Where is he?” Bucky directs the question at Coulson, since Natasha seems disinclined to cooperate.

                Coulson raises his eyebrows, glances between Natasha and Bucky. “Unclear,” he says. “Romanoff, any theories as to why he disabled his tracking chip before he went after Barton?”

                Natasha makes a small grimace of distaste. It’s just understated enough for Bucky to suspect it’s genuine. “He doesn’t have many contacts whose locations he still hides,” she says, after a moment. “There’s one nearby.”

                “Talia,” Bucky says, with a grimace of his own. “You let him go to Talia?”

                Natasha shrugs. “Well, it’s a running theme. Everyone’s digging in their past.”

                “Enough,” Coulson says. Referee is a familiar role for him, but it isn’t necessary. Not right now, not with this group. Jason and Tony occasionally have loud arguments in the middle of mission briefings, and Clint, sometimes, gets sensitive about in-fighting.

                None of them are here.

                “If you want Todd,” Natasha says, shoulders back, chin tilted, body language deliberately casual, “call him in.”

                It’s not clear which one of them she’s talking to. Neither one of them takes the bait, because Coulson’s tablet beeps an alarm, and his eyes drop to the text scrolling across his screen.

                “Unfortunately,” Coulson says, “we don’t have time for that. Loki’s been spotted.”

 

 

 

                Thirty minutes later, Bucky’s suiting up in a borrowed room, and Steve’s holding his newly returned shield, tracing the rings of the target with his fingers.

                “Steve,” he says, “this doesn’t have to be your fight. There’s gonna be plenty of fights.” Bucky’s fully changed into the uniform SHIELD issued and Tony modified, and now he’s just methodically holstering guns and sheathing knives. “There’s gonna be another fight next week.”

                If he’s learned anything, it’s that there is always, _always_ another fight.

                Steve looks up. There’s a STRIKE uniform on the chair next to him, but he hasn’t touched it. “That’s a lot of guns, Buck.”

                Bucky shrugs. “Used to carry more.”

                It’s just three now. Four, if you count the Barrett M107, but he’ll probably leave the rifle on the quinjet. There’s Coulson’s stolen Glock 19 that he and Jason share back and forth like a lucky charm, the SIG-Sauer P220 he’s carried since his last Winter Soldier mission, and a derringer Tony made, for emergencies.

                Three guns, and three knives. He likes it, likes the symmetry of it. Three has been a good number for him. By his count, he’s on his third life. And then there’s him, and Jason, and Tony. Three.

                “Do these people know you’re a sniper?” Steve sounds skeptical. His eyes are on the knives.

                Bucky hesitates. He lets that settle for a second and then looks over at Steve, makes himself hold eye-contact. “That’s not what I am anymore, Steve. You read the file.”

                He handed Steve that file. He asked Coulson, as a personal favor, to redact as little of it as possible. It’s got all of his kills – every mission he ran for SHIELD, every suspected Hydra hit – listed out in objective, impersonal detail. Steve knows exactly how he’s used his knives.

                “If you’re going to fight some alien,” Steve says, “I’m going with you.”

                “Iron Man’s on his way. The suit might beat us there. The two of us--”

                “I’m sure the suit's good in a fight,” Steve says, with a twisted-up frown that implies maybe he isn’t sold on the idea. “But I know what we can do. And I’d feel a hell of a lot better down there with you than I would sitting back here, waiting to hear how it went.”

                “You’re allowed to skip a fight or two, Steve. Maybe back in the 40’s, we could take every fight we found, but the world’s a lot smaller now. You’re gonna have to learn to let a couple go.”

                Not that it’s easy. Not that any of them exactly excel at walking away. Coulson has to constantly monitor the whole damn team to make sure no one’s overexerted. They have their own personal recuperation timetables, worked out by Coulson and a team of analysts. They get benched; they miss fights.

                Granted, this is a hell of a fight to miss.

                Steve smiles. It’s thin, faded around the edges. It reminds Bucky of years and years ago, over half a century back, when he and Steve said goodbye, right before Bucky shipped out and Steve stayed home. “Waited a lot,” Steve says, like he’s thinking of the same moment. “Waited my fill, Buck.”

                Bucky sighs. It won’t be the first time he’s watched someone he loves wade into a fight that could kill them. It won’t even be the first time it’s Steve. But it’s not something you get used to.

                “Alright,” he says, jerking his chin toward the uniform beside Steve. “Suit up, Cap.”

 

 

 

                Steve doesn’t like the uniform. It’s not the only thing about SHIELD that he’s not going to like, not the worst sin they’re hiding, and it’s just trivial enough that Bucky has to bite back a smile. Steve’s glaring down at the uniform, mouth pressed flat as he runs his fingers down the kevlar.

                “I don’t like all this black, Buck,” Steve says, finally. He looks up, jaw set, absolutely aware that what he’s saying is ridiculous and saying it anyway, because of _course_ he’s going to say it. He’s Steve Rogers.

                Bucky loses the fight to hold back his smile. “Sorry, Steve. Not gonna let them put you back in the old uniform.”

                Which had, apparently, been the plan. That was Fury’s actual, no-shit plan. They were going to patch the uniform Steve wore while he spent decades frozen at the bottom of the Atlantic, and then they were going to put him right back into it.

                Like Steve doesn’t walk around with a literal target on his shield. Like he’s got the kind of luck that could risk wearing a funeral suit twice.

                Tony doesn’t believe in luck. Jason doesn’t believe in much of anything. But, unlike Jason, Bucky’s never thought that not believing in a thing was enough to justify spitting right in its face.

                The plan had been presented to Bucky and then dropped seconds later, when Bucky turned a slow, skeptical look on Fury and said, “You want to put my friend back in the clothes he died in?”

                The problem is that not even SHIELD’s curiously gifted tailors can throw together a reasonable remake of Cap’s signature uniform on such a short timeline. So the only option is whatever they already had in stock, which leaves Steve with an all-black, exceedingly tactical STRIKE suit and a look on his face like someone offered him roadkill for breakfast.

                “There’s a pretty nice replica at the Smithsonian,” Bucky says, when Steve keeps frowning down at his uniform. “First chance we get, I’ll help you steal it.”

                Steve makes a horrified face. “The _Smithsonian_?”

                “Yeah,” Bucky says, smile cracking wider, forming into a grin. “They’ve got a whole exhibit on the Howling Commandos. I’ll take you sometime.”

                Steve’s face goes hollow and sad and then tight and focused, and Bucky knows he’s going to have to be careful, talking about the Howlies. About Peggy. About Howard and Bucky’s sisters and everyone they lost. But it’s some kind of relief, finally having someone that shares them.

                He can say the names and know Steve’s getting the same pictures in this head, seeing the same faces. There’s something grounding in that, in feeling like that first life, the life of James Buchannan Barnes, wasn’t a fever dream or a lie or a fairy tale.

                “Aren’t we supposed to be the good guys?” Steve gestures down at his borrowed uniform. “This looks like something we found in Red Skull’s closet. C’mon, Buck. I look like a nightmare. I’m gonna scare kids.”

                Bucky shrugs. “You want me to spray paint you red, white, and blue?”

                “I don’t know what that is,” Steve says. “But, sure. Spray paint me.”

                He missed this. Steve’s not soft in the way civilians tend to be, or even in the way Tony can get, sometimes, when the bloody practicalities of their work manifest as dead people in the street. Steve’s soft like a guard dog is soft, when it’s home with its family. He’s not naïve, never has been, but it’s easy to make that mistake. People think it’s childish or charming, all that pure goodness, that simple, single-minded dedication to doing what’s right.

                It’s not childish; it’s not naivety. It’s not even all that charming.

                It’s going to cause problems. Hell, it always has.

                “We’ll get you a better uniform,” Bucky promises. He doesn’t say that black hides blood better than white or blue. He doesn’t say that black blends in better at night. He doesn’t mention that, sometimes, with the work they do, they’re not exactly interested in declaring any sort of national allegiance.

                It’s going to be a problem, when Steve starts to fully understand their work. Bucky’s not in any hurry to rush it along. 

                “Everyone’s gonna be looking at the shield anyway,” Bucky says. “They won’t even notice what you’re wearing.”

 

 

 

                “You boys don’t have too much fun,” Natasha says, as they close in on Stuttgart. “It’s peacetime out there. Lots of noncombatants.”

                Bucky doesn’t need a reminder that Germany’s not a war zone, and he’s a bit offended on Steve’s behalf. Sure, he’s several decades out of date, but he’s been reading every second he can, hunched over printouts and tablets with Bucky beside him, explaining.

                “There are always noncombatants,” Steve says.

                “Sure,” Natasha says, with a nod. She glances back at them, and her eyes linger for a minute on Bucky’s. There’s a hook there, a catch. She’d go with them, if they asked. But he wants her up here, with the quinjet’s guns. Nat’s as skilled as any of them, but they’re going to fight a god.

                And if Loki takes Natasha _and_ Clint, Jason’s going to lose his mind.

                He doesn’t want to say it in front of Steve, because it’ll upset him. But as they do their final checks, Bucky grabs his phone, sends a text to Nat: _If he gets in my head, shoot me._

                _If he gets in your head_ , she replies, _I’ll crack his skull open until your brain comes back._

                It’s nice to have a team. As he drops onto German soil, he hopes like hell that he doesn’t end up killing any of them.

 

 

 

                He hates Loki on sight. He can hear Jason’s voice in his head, sneering: _Oh, look at this prissy Goddamn asshole. Look at his fucking **hat**. Hey, Coulson, we gotta pretend to take this shithead seriously or can I go ahead and disembowel him with his own sparkly tiara?_

The Asgardian is aiming his scepter at an old man, who’s standing shakily in a crowd of people on their knees, and Bucky can tell, in an instant, that this is going to piss Steve off.

                But Clint didn’t know about Steve. Which means Loki probably doesn’t know about Steve.

                As he drops toward the fight, Bucky weighs it out in his head, comes to a conclusion he doesn’t like.

                If Jason were here, this is exactly the kind of sight that would make him drop his guns and draw a knife. Steve may hate bullies, but this was a trap designed to get Jason within reach of that scepter.

                That smile – sick and smug, superior and amused – is borrowed off the Joker’s old mugshots. The spectacle of this, the _show_ , the way he’s standing there with a grin on his face and a laugh in his voice while he holds an entire street of terrified people hostage, it’s right from the Joker’s playbook.

                Bucky doesn’t even try not to take that personally.

                Loki’s scepter fires some kind of energy blast at the old man, but Steve lunges between them, knocks it right back at him with his shield. Straightening up, Steve starts in on some kind of speech – “You now, the last time I was in Germany,” – and Bucky takes advantage of the distraction. He drops on Loki while he’s still down, grabs him by the back of his cape and hurls him up toward the stairs, away from the people, hoping to get the kind of clearance that will let him pull his guns without worrying about panicky civilians and ricochet.

                Loki, turns out, is _fast_. The scepter is a spindly thing, looks like it would snap with one solid hit, but it rings against Bucky’s arm, smashes down hard enough that he feels it all the way up to his teeth. The second swipe comes for his legs, and Bucky’s quick enough to dodge, but he ends up on his back anyway, tripped up by a woman scrambling the wrong direction.

                There’s a second – one single moment – where Loki’s scepter is pointed right between his eyes. “Ah, the Soldier,” Loki says, smiling wicked and bright and terrifying. “Barton tells me you’re a pliable sort. Compliant, with proper guidance.”

                The peripheries of Bucky’s brain whiteout with remembered panic, and then the flashing red-blue shine of Steve’s shield knocks the scepter away and slams Loki back.

                Bucky takes a breath, leaps to his feet, and falls in beside Steve as they charge the Asgardian. There’s a bit of a mess, afterward, as the two of them throw Loki back and forth between them, taking hits that are going to leave the sort of marks that linger.

                Steve’s not ready for this. He’s slower than he should be, hesitant when he can’t afford to be, and Loki throws him to the ground, gets his scepter pressed against Steve’s head, and the only thing that saves him is Bucky, tackling Loki and weathering the strike that follows: a jarring, sickening jab of the blunted end of the scepter, right to his ribs.

                He’s wheezing on the ground, curling his fingers against the broken concrete, trying to lever himself up. Steve’s regrouping, but Loki’s faster, coming for Bucky with that mind-wiping scepter, and Bucky’s calculating escape routes, trying to figure out how they’re going to get out of this without Nat using the quinjet’s guns to level the courtyard and slaughter unlucky civilians.

                And then, faintly but growing louder, like a chorus of avenging angels, he hears AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill” ringing out.

                Bucky relaxes against the ground, breathes out, feels his mouth curling up into a smile even as Loki frowns, eyes scanning the skyline.

                A second later, a burst of flame catches Loki in the chest and hurls him, end over end, across the courtyard and into the stone steps.

                Iron Man lands on the pavement, crunching it to gravel beneath him, and then stands up, suit humming as it locks a dozen separate weapons on Loki. “Make a move, Reindeer Games,” Tony says, and Bucky picks himself up, falls in on Tony’s right while Steve positions himself on his left.

                Loki hesitates and then slowly raises his hands. He glows faintly golden as his cape and helmet fade away, spellwork dropping to reveal what must pass as Asgardian streetwear.

                “Hey,” Bucky says. “Appreciate you dropping in.”

                Tony nods. The Iron Man suit does not power down; he keeps his weapons locked on Loki as the quinjet settles behind them.

                “He gets that stick anywhere near you again,” Tony says, low enough that Loki won’t overhear, “and I’m gonna impale him on it and send him back to Asgard as a roast.”

                “Thanks, sweetheart,” Bucky says, rubbing at his mouth to hide a small, tired smile. He tips his head toward Tony’s other side. “Want you to meet my buddy, Steve.”

                “Iron Man,” Steve says, with a nod. A second after that, he falters, eyes dodging to Bucky and then back to the suit’s glowing eyes. “Mr. Stark,” he tries, a touch uncertain.

                “Cap,” Tony says, with a small incline of his head. There’s distance there, some kind of self-protective formality. Bucky’s going to have to find a way to address that, probably.

                But, right now, Loki’s crouched across the courtyard, hands up like he’s helpless while his eyes track attentively between the three of them. Bucky doesn’t want to show any vulnerabilities, give him any ideas of their weaknesses.

                He feels, somehow, like Loki already knows enough.


	4. Chapter 4

                The interrogation room Talia’s goons drag Jason into is insultingly low security. He’s got a gun pressed to the back of his head and a hand curled in the collar of his shirt, pulling the fabric tight against his throat. “Talia’s gonna be so pissed,” Jason tells them. “I’m her favorite Bat, you know. And I’m not even the one she regularly sleeps with.”

                “Shut up,” one of them advises. He punctuates it with a sharp twist of his hand, dragging Jason’s head back as they shove him down into a chair.

                “Guys, please,” he says. “For the sake of your dignity, stop treating me like a civilian you caught snooping around her skylight. You manhandle me some more, and I’m gonna have to take offense.”

                “What’s that look like?” It’s the leaner one that asks, the smarter one. The one holding a gun to his head instead of putting his hands within reach. He pushes the gun forward, digs it into Jason’s skull. “You, taking offense?”

                “Usually looks like me feeding you your own teeth,” Jason says. “Back off. Tell Talia I’m here.”

                “Talia is a busy woman.” The lean one shifts around so he’s standing in front of Jason. The gun stays pointed at Jason’s face for a second and then drops to aim at his knee. “But I’ve got some time to spare.”

                “I don’t have time to play pattycake with you.” Jason tugs at the handcuffs, tries to calculate how pissed Talia’s going to be if he announces his presence by dropping two heads in her lap. “Get me Talia, or I’ll get her myself.”

                “That won’t be necessary, Jason,” Talia says, as she sweeps in. “In the future, if you’ll call ahead, we could skip these unpleasantries.”

                “Who’s being unpleasant?” Jason aims his widest, most insufferably self-satisfied smirk at the pair of guards. “Your guys are real charming, Talia. I think one of them was about to ask me to prom.”

                “That’s enough,” Talia says. It’s not immediately clear which one of them she’s talking to, but all three of them go still. “Get him out of those handcuffs before he breaks them, and give him his weapons back. Then bring him upstairs.”

                She’s gone a second later, doesn’t glance back once, and Jason stares after her, a little unsettled, the way he always is around her. He doesn’t blink back into himself until he feels one of the guards catch his wrists, yank his arms up at an uncomfortable angle so they can fit the key into the lock.

                “I told you I was important,” Jason says, shaking out his wrists. “Guess I need to come around more often. Remind you who I am.”

                He hasn’t seen Talia in years. There’s no particular reason, except that Talia complicates things, pisses off Nat _and_ Bucky, and maybe there’s some part of him that’s not especially eager to go wading back into the part of his life when Talia featured prominently. But if Talia’s guys don’t even know his face now, maybe he’s spent too much time away.

                “About those weapons,” Jason says, as the guards start herding him out of the room and up a set of stairs, “my boyfriend made those for me, so I’ll be needing those back, right now, and, if there’s so much as a minion-shaped finger smudge on one of them, we’re gonna have problems.”

                “You always talk this much?” The guard’s tone is only a touch more courteous than before, and that is the first thing about him that Jason likes.

                “Sweetheart,” Jason says, “Igor, Henchman #1. Trust me. The second I stop talking, you’re gonna find out that the other things I do are much worse.”

 

 

 

                A few minutes later, with all his weapons tucked safely back into their holsters and sheathes, the guards usher him into a room, and Jason steps inside, too dead-set on refusing to show weakness to realize what he’s walking into until he’s already there.

                “Uh,” he says, after a quick beat of assessment. “Hi. Is there somewhere else we can do this?”

                “Is there a problem, Jason?” The way Talia asks it implies, heavily, what the correct answer is. Jason knows what she wants to hear. With almost everyone else on this planet, once Jason figures out what people want to hear, he damn near sprains something spitting out the opposite as fast as possible. But Talia’s always been a special case.

                Anyway, he doesn’t care where they have this meeting. Hell, he’s certainly been in her bedroom before.

                “Would you like some?” Talia asks, holding up a bottle of red wine. She’s across the room, sitting at a desk that’s been wiped clean of whatever she was working on. She’s beautiful, and terrifying, and wearing entirely too much black. So at least nothing’s changed.

                “Sure,” he says, with a shrug. “I’m off the clock. Why not?”

                She pours two glasses and holds one toward him. He crosses the room and then reaches out, takes the glass off the desk, the one she’d clearly meant to keep for herself. She blinks, looks momentarily surprised, and then smiles, indulgent and amused and faintly – if he squints – almost fond. “Are you worried I poisoned your drink?”

                “Nope,” he says, because he isn’t. He takes a sip of the wine to prove it.

                He’s not worried she poisoned the wine. He’s not worried she poisoned the glass. He’s just cautious, or maybe overcompensating for the way she can always knock him casually off-track.

                “Are you worried I dosed it?” She drinks from the glass he refused, and he should find that comforting, but he just wonders, instead, if maybe she expected him to switch the glasses.

                “Talia,” he says, “if you wanted to drug me, you would’ve stabbed a syringe in my neck when I was handcuffed in a chair.”

                “Jason,” she returns, with an edged smile, “I think I have a bit more class than that.”

                Jason reflect on that for a moment and then shrugs magnanimously. “Well, what the hell would I know about class?”

                She sizes him up leisurely, in no particular hurry, and Jason does his best not to fidget. Her eyes drop from his face to his arms, to the guns at his hips and the knife tucked into his boot. “How is your work, Jason? Still killing for whichever corrupt politician pays off your shadow agency?”

                Jason lets his eyebrows rise. “You really wanna talk shit about shadow agencies, Talia? It’s the League of _what_ , again?”

                “And your lover,” she continues, “how is he?”

                “Which one?” Jason asks. He doesn’t expect much pushback from Talia, as far as having multiple lovers. She’d have a hard time justifying that with him.

                “Oh, we could discuss both.” She lifts her glass, takes another drink. “The Winter Soldier or the Merchant of Death. You pick.”

                “I’m not dating either one.” Jason doesn’t get angry; he knows it’s not personal. This is a test, the way everything with her and Bruce is always a test. “If you’ve got questions about Tony or Bucky, though, maybe I’ll answer.”

                There’s a look on her face like he’s a puzzle, neither interesting nor complicated, but temporarily distracting. “What are you doing here, Jason? Shouldn’t you be working to fix the problems you’ve created?”

                Jason rolls his eyes. “Right, I handwrote an invitation to some Asgardian shithead. ‘Hey, alien scum, I’m getting bored. Come down here and fuck our shit up.’”

                “Do you know what SHIELD was doing?” Talia’s tone is thoughtful and precise and unnervingly reminiscent of someone baiting a trap. “Do you know what they were doing, in their research facility?”

                “Do _you_?” Jason asks, because, if someone from SHIELD is spilling secrets to Talia, he’s going to have to put a stop to it. He knows what it’s like. He knows what _she’s_ like. And he knows she likes to keep tabs on him, because she feels responsible for bringing him back into the world. But if there’s an agent selling secrets, he’ll to have to shut them up.

                Talia finishes her wine and sets the glass on the desk. “I am not a scientist, Jason. I’m not an expert in Gamma radiation or astrophysics, but I know, when you knock on a door, sometimes something answers. And I know, when this particular door opens, SHIELD is not prepared for what will come through it.”

                “Can you save the cryptic bullshit for your love letters to Bruce, please? I’m trying to find a friend, Talia. I don’t have time for this.”

                She smiles. The fondness is easier to see now, but there’s a sadness that distracts him. “I’m telling you to be careful,” she says. “They’ll throw you at a threat they brought on themselves, and, when you die, they will hold a very lovely funeral. But you will still be dead. Don’t waste the gift I gave you.”

                Jason swallows. It’s jarring. What she’s saying, and how she’s saying it. There isn’t much sweetness to Talia, very little give before you hit her core of steel and marble. He’s never been sure if she cares about him at all or if she just looks at him and sees another needle she can use to pierce Bruce, stitch him more tightly to her.

                He hadn’t minded, when he was younger. Hell, he never could tell that about himself, either. Maybe, all along, they were just using each other to get to Bruce. Or maybe they’d both agreed that whatever they felt for each other came second to how they could make Bruce feel about them.

                “Careful, Talia,” he says, knocking back the rest of his wine. “It sounds like you’re worried about me.”

                “The world is better off with you in it,” she says, standing up. “I remember what it was like – what _he_ was like – when you were gone.”

                “I’m still gone.” It comes out harsher than he intends, angry, bitter, and too honest. Maybe Talia really _did_ drug the wine. “To him, I’ll always be dead.”

                Talia moves toward him. He holds his ground, makes the choice not to step away, even when her hands come up to bracket his face. Her hold is gentle. She could snap his neck with those hands.

                He gets a flash – a quick, long-buried sense memory – of those hands on him. Of her hands on him, and her voice in his ear. “Take Gotham from him. Cross the line. Punish him, Jason. For all of us.”

                The last time Talia touched him like this, she sent him to kill Bruce Wayne. This time, she just looks into his eyes for a long moment and then lays a gentle kiss on his forehead, like some kind of benediction.

                “For him,” she says, “you will never die. There is you and the ghost of you, and he can never look at one without seeing the other.”

                Jason closes his eyes. He’s still, for a second, and then he deliberately steps away from her. Her hands drop to her sides, and she watches him, with all the patience of a wolf waiting for wounded prey to fall.

                “Talia,” he says, “I’m trying to find a friend. I don’t—this isn’t about Bruce. This is about Hawkeye. I need to find him.”

                There’s a moment between them that stretches and pulls, heavy with the weight of everything they’ve done for and to and because of each other. And then she nods, brisk and businesslike, and sets off across the room.

                “If you’re hunting gods,” she says, “you’ll need better weapons.”

                “You gonna outfit me, Talia?” Jason asks, smiling wide and crooked, like none of this is fucking with his head. “One last time?”

                Talia moves to a dresser, pulls open a drawer, and runs her fingers along the weapons inside until her hand curls around the hilt of a dagger. She lifts it carefully, and it catches the light, shines an unnatural blue. “This,” she says, “was stolen for me, at great cost. The Amazons held it for centuries. It eats magic.”

                “It eats magic,” Jason repeats, more surprised than skeptical. Amazons don’t part happily with their blades. He wonders how many lives add up to Talia’s _great cost_.

                “It will break a spell.” Talia tips the knife his way, hilt-first. “But it is not especially kind about it. I’ve been told the process is incredibly unpleasant.”

                “So if I stab my archer…” Jason says, curling his hand around the hilt and lifting the knife. It’s warm, noticeably so. It feels like he’s just put his hand on something alive.

                “It will break the magic on his mind,” Talia pauses, tips her head. “But it might be kinder to try knocking him unconscious first.”

                Jason nods. There’s a strange sensation traveling from his hand up his arm, a kind of low-level vibration that is almost a hum.

                _Eats magic_ , she said.

                Well, that seems right. The knife, somehow, feels hungry.

                “And if I stab the Asgardian?” he asks, as he changes his grip on the knife, feels the weight of it, judges the reach.

                “It will eat at the magic in him,” she says, “until the curse breaks, or he does.”

                Jason smiles. It blooms slowly into a feral grin, and Talia’s face is unreadable, but he thinks the look in her eyes might be sadness, or warning. Or regret.

                 “Perfect,” Jason says. “Thanks. Now, do you have any idea where Hawkeye is?”

                Talia considers him for a long moment. Finally, she sighs, and Jason realizes he was wrong. It isn’t sadness, or warning, or regret. It’s guilt. This is some kind of apology. “Well,” she says, stepping away from him, headed back to her desk. “I have a theory.”

 

 

 

                Jason is on the road for two hours before the decision he made thirty miles ago finally forces him off the road. He puts the battery back into his phone and spends five minutes staring at the call screen, weighing everything out, before he punches in the number. It rings three times, goes to voicemail, and then, before he can even put the damn thing back in his pocket, it rings.

                “Red Hood?” Bruce says, when Jason accepts the call. A second later, he adds, just a touch frantic: “Jason?”

                “Hey, Bats,” Jason says. “You still have a Super problem?”

                “I might,” Bruce says, because he likes straight answers, but he damn sure never gives them out for free. “How’s your archer?”

                “Oh, he’s been better.” Jason glances down at the dagger Talia gave him. “Listen,” he says, “I’ve got something that might help you with that Kryptonian problem.”

                “Do you?” There’s a brief pause, some kind of yelling in the background. “What is it?”

                “Oh, some Amazonian dagger. Eats magic.”

                Bruce is quiet for a moment. “And where did you acquire that? SHIELD? Did Coul--”

                “This isn’t secure,” Jason says, cutting him off. He doesn’t want SHIELD zeroing in on the mentions, tracking this back before Jason has a chance to explain himself. “Come pick me up. I’ll trade you the knife for a plane ride.”

                “Who gave you the dagger?”

                Jason bites briefly into the inside of his cheek. He’s not ashamed of anything he did with Talia, but he never exactly in a rush to talk about it with Bruce. “Talia.”

                There’s nothing, for several seconds, just silence building between them. And then, finally, “Send me your location.”

 

 

 

                Bruce Wayne is constitutionally incapable of looking like shit, but he’s definitely looked better. Jason straightens up as Batman moves toward him, and he runs a quick, calculating look down his frame, tries to pinpoint every area of weakness Bruce is trying to hide.

                “Superman get a bit rough with you?” he asks. “You forget your safe word?”

                “The dagger,” Bruce says, hand out like it’s something Jason owes him.

                “Jesus Christ,” Jason says, as he hands over the knife, “Alfred would swoon at your manners, Bruce. He really would.”

                Bruce stares down at the dagger for just long enough that Jason figures he’s got Babs looking through his eyes, running all kinds of analyses. “Have you tested this?”

                “Nope,” Jason says.

                Bruce is silent for a few seconds longer and then looks up. “You want me to risk a member of my team before you risk one of yours?”

                “Oh, fuck you,” Jason says, doing his best not to throw a punch right at Bruce’s face.

                Bruce tips his head to the side. In the Batman getup, it’s impossible to read his expression. Although, for Jason, it’s always been more or less impossible either way. “You have some other motive?”

                “First of all,” Jason says, “your Kryptonian is a _bit_ more resilient than my human. And second of all, Superman’s gonna kill a lot more people than Hawkeye. And third of all, _fuck_ you. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it back.”

                He hadn’t wanted to do this. It feels like a betrayal. He’s always told himself, if he had to choose between team and cause, he’d choose his team, every time. The world’s full of lost causes, but he can count his friends on his fingers.

                Clint wouldn’t want his rescue mission to cost lives. But it’s Clint’s job to save the world, and Jason’s job to make sure he’s alive to do that. And, right now, Jason’s making a different call.

                He’s no better than Bruce, when it comes down to it.

                Bruce looks at him, and Jason hates him so much in that moment. He hates the history between them. He hates all the accusations Bruce doesn’t even need to voice. He hates that here he is, finally being the perfect Robin, finally making the Bat-approved call, and Bruce is still disappointed in him.

                “Jason,” he says, “where are you going?”

                “What the fuck does that mean? Christ, Bruce, the deal is a knife for a plane ride. You don’t get a free interrogation. And I want that knife back, when Superman’s clear.”

                Bruce frowns. “Are you going after Loki?”

                Jason takes a breath. He could lie. He probably _should_ lie. He should say whatever it takes to make Bruce scamper back to Metropolis or wherever the hell Wonder Woman’s managed to drag Superman.

                But he figures he’s spent enough time lying to Bruce, trying to convince both of them that he’s something other than what he is. “Yeah,” he says. “Talia said, maybe if I hit Hawkeye hard enough, he’ll get his brain back.”

                Bruce’s hand curls slowly around the dagger. “Alright,” he says. “Get in the jet. I’ll drop you off.”

                But when they land, after what is easily one of the most uncomfortable flights of Jason’s life, Bruce’s hand catches Jason wrist before he can leave the plane. “Jason,” he says, “I can go with you.”

                It’s an offer. From Bruce, it sounds like a sacrifice.

                And what good would it do, anyway? Jason died under his watch once before.

                “No,” he says, stepping away. “Go get your League in order, Bruce. The world might need it.”

                Bruce hesitates. He makes a short, aborted move toward Jason, and Jason can see, in that movement, in its gracelessness, exactly how much damage he’s already taken. It makes him feel even more dead-set against bringing him along. It makes him, for the first time since he woke up in his own coffin, feel protective of Bruce Wayne.

                “I’ve got this, old man,” he says. “Go save the world. I’m gonna save my team.”

 

 

 

                When Jason breaks into Loki’s hideout, he finds it empty. The whole thing is cleared out, completely and conspicuously, and the only thing left behind is a single arrow, snapped in half. Jason doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but he sure as hell doesn’t like it.

                He exits carefully, spends an hour making sure he’s not being followed, and then he dodges into a bus station to get himself centered. The TV is showing the news, and he sees Iron Man and Bucky, caught in some conflict in Germany.

                And then, blurry and blown-up, he sees Captain America.  

                “What the fuck,” he says, quietly. He reaches into his pocket, grabs his phone, shoves the battery into place so hard he nearly snaps the thing in half. “ _What_ ,” he says, when Coulson picks up, “the _fuck_?”

                “Did you find him?” Coulson asks, a bit more blasé than Jason entirely appreciates.

                “No,” Jason says, “I found where he was, but they’ve cleared out. Speaking of finding people, did you happen to find Captain fucking _America_ and forget to tell me?”

                “Are you coming back to work?” Coulson asks. “If you come back to work, I’ll send you the mission briefing.”

                “The team already has a blonde,” Jason says. “We’ve got one permanent blonde, and Nat will change it up if we ask nice. And that’s enough. That’s the lineup, Coulson. What the _fuck_.”

                Bucky was there, with the Captain. _Tony_ was there, standing between them. And he figures Nat was in the quinjet, which means everyone on the team knew before him.

                Well, probably not Clint.

                “Jason.” Coulson sounds tired. Behind that, he sounds worried. “It’s time to come in.”

                “Barton was there, Coulson,” Jason says. “I found one of his arrows. I can _find_ him.”

                “ _Jason_ ,” Coulson says, sharper. “We captured Loki. It’s time to come in.”

                Jason swallows. He thinks about the knife he gave to Bruce. He thinks about the reports he’s read, all the information they have on Asgardians. He thinks about the Joker.

                He wants to be wrong. It’s not that he doesn’t have faith in his team. But he knows tricksters. And if Loki is in SHIELD custody, it’s probably because he wants to be.

                It’s numbers, in the end. He wants to find Clint, but there are four members of his team on the helicarrier, and they’re bringing Loki to them.

                “Yeah,” he says. “Alright, Coulson. Send me a plane. I’ll come in.”


	5. Chapter 5

                Loki sits quietly on the quinjet, barely restrained. He ignores their questions, but his eyes move leisurely between them, lingering the longest on Steve. He smiles at Bucky, knowing and amused, and Bucky feels something cold burrow into his chest, make itself at home. 

                Tony steps between them, still fully suited up, faceplate down, and Bucky should find that comforting, but the flash of laughter across Loki’s face means they are, all of them, somehow playing into his game.

                If the mind control made Barton talkative, Loki already knows exactly who’s in the Iron Man suit.

                The official story is that Tony pilots the suit remotely, when he bothers to pilot it at all. Allegedly, it’s mostly self-directed, and, when it requires a pilot, there are several SI employees who can step in if he’s disinclined. The military has been after his drone tech – and his pilots – for years. It would shock the hell out of the whole world, if they knew there was a human being in that tin can.

                Or gold-titanium alloy can. Whichever.

                There’s been some murmuring about it, from pundits and generals and especially opinionated journalists. They say Tony is happy to play hero, so long as he does it from a safe distance. Happy to send his drone to battle, but not ready to take any hits himself.

                Bucky, who’s seen the damage from those hits, asked JARVIS to filter all stories about Tony out of his news feed. Jason, who is apparently of the opinion that regularly drinking poison somehow makes him immune to it, asked JARVIS to forward every damn story to his phone.

                Tony’s cover was, as usual, a brilliant and somewhat ruthless play on his public reputation. As long as Bucky’s known him, people have always been eager to call Tony Stark a coward. Tony stepped up to the podium the day after they rescued Barton and Coulson in Afghanistan, and he gave them an excuse.

                “If I’m replaceable,” Tony told Bucky, later, “then I’m not an effective target.”

                Which means, Bucky figures, that Tony decided by diffusing the focus he could protect those around him. By indicating that there are multiple pilots, he’s cut the chances that anyone will come after Maria Stark or Jason or Bucky to get to Tony.

                What he’s also done is drop the amount of protective cover-fire he gets from SHIELD agents in the field to an absolute minimum. Why help the robot, if the robot can be repaired?

                The agreement with SHIELD is that Tony will run missions when he’s called in – and, sometimes, when he calls himself in – provided that there are absolutely no SHIELD reports that indicate the suit requires manual piloting or identifying him as the sole pilot.

                Even now, there are at least two people on the quinjet who don’t know Tony Stark is present. There’s the SHIELD pilot, and then there’s Steve Rogers.

                Bucky knows he should have told him. But he knows, also, that Tony wouldn’t want him to. So he’d kept his mouth shut and watched as Steve worked his way through dozens of written reports and recorded fights that never once stated there was a human being under the armor.

                “Oh, that’s cute,” Tony says, suddenly. His voice is more distorted than usual; he’s playing up the robot, but Bucky can’t be sure if that’s for Loki or Steve’ benefit. Tony got it in his head years ago that Iron Man was more palatable than Tony Stark. Whenever he’s trying to impress, he lets the suit take the forefront. “The skies were clear five minutes ago. Hey, Blitzen, you know anything about this?”

                “Blitzen,” Steve repeats, flat and a touch skeptical, like he’s not sure which one of them Tony’s referring to.

                “Calm down,” Tony advises, unhelpfully. “It’s a children’s song, not a World War II reference.”

                “That,” Steve says, equally unhelpfully, “was the _Blitz_. And I know about Rudolph.”

                “Gentlemen,” Natasha interrupts. Her tone is pitched high and gentle, just sweet enough for Bucky to fully appreciate the danger. “We’ve got a magic storm brewing. If you’re done caroling, could one of you ask our prisoner to knock it off?”

                “Sure, Widow,” Tony says, “but I’m kinda worried if I ask too insistently Cap’s gonna put me on the naughty list.”

                “You’ve been on that list your whole life,” Bucky says. It comes out more of a drawl than he means it. Maybe Stark’s not the only one overcompensating.

                But it’s telling, probably, which way they’re running. Tony’s creating space, building walls, and Bucky’s damn near shoving Steve’s nose in it, as obliquely as possible, because he can’t get that _Oh_ and _Well, Buck, as long as you’re happy_ out of his head.

                Steve, for his part, just looks between Bucky and the Iron Man suit for a second and then turns his head decisively in Loki’s direction. “Loki,” he says, “what are you doing?”

                Loki frowns out at the sudden storm clouds, face lit briefly by the flash of lightning. “This isn’t my doing,” he says, after a moment. “I’m afraid you’ve attracted some attention, Captain.”

                Bucky bristles at the title in Loki’s mouth. Beside him, Tony shifts closer, and Bucky can hear the faint whine of the suit powering up to a more combat-ready status.

                And then something slams hard into the roof of the quinjet.

                “Shit,” the SHIELD pilot says, with the kind of resigned, gritted-teeth exasperation that borrowed agents tend to bring to their missions. “There is someone on the roof. There is a _person_ on the roof of a _moving plane_. This is fucking—this is a Twilight Zone episode. What _is_ it with you people?”

                “Don’t worry, kiddo,” Natasha says, with a smile that would probably be reassuring if it didn’t flash quite so many teeth. “The survival rate of our SHIELD tourists is very high.”

                The pilot glances her direction. She, somehow, decides to flash _more_ teeth.

                “Shoulda flown for Delta,” the agent murmurs and then crosses himself before turning back to his controls. “You want me to shake him off?”

                “Oh, _please_ try,” Loki says, sounding thrilled.

                “I’m not taking orders for that guy, am I?” He throws a glance at Bucky, which is the first reminder in a while that Bucky is, technically, the senior agent on this op.

                “No,” Bucky says. Because that much, at least, he knows to be true.

                “Don’t worry,” Tony says, which immediately opens a fissure of anxiety in Bucky’s chest. “I’ll handle this.” He reaches over, presses a few buttons, and the hatch at the back of the plane immediately starts opening.

                “Iron Man,” Steve says, slipping right into his Captain America voice, “what are you--”

                “Oh, sorry, Cap, did you want him to bash his way inside?” Tony jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “How many Hail Mary’s are you gonna make that kid do?”

                Steve’s frown settles deeper, but, before he can find his way to a response, a blonde man with a cape, a hammer, and a dishearteningly broad set of shoulders lands on the end of the hatch. There’s a long, ludicrous moment where they’re all just staring at each other, and then Tony raises his hand, and, a half-second later, the blonde throws his hammer.

                The hammer knocks the Iron Man suit back hard enough to take Steve off his feet, and then it swings around to catch Bucky on its way back to the blonde’s hand. Before any of them can recover, the new arrival grabs Loki by the throat and drags him bodily off the plane. They disappear into the flashing, boiling storm clouds.

                “Son of a bitch,” Tony says, picking himself up off the floor. “What an asshole.”

                “Who was that?” Steve asks, swiveling his head toward Bucky.

                “Thor,” Bucky says, with a shrug. “I think.”

                “I’ll ask.” Tony strides toward the open hatch. Bucky considers trying to stop him, but he’s known Tony for years, and he can tell from his posture alone exactly how pissed off he is. He prioritizes efficiency and starts strapping himself into a parachute, instead.

                “Iron Man,” Steve calls, because he’s known Tony for forty-five minutes, which is almost not at all, “we need a plan of attack.”

                “I have a plan,” Tony says. “Attack.” And then, without any further conversation or the barest nod toward coordination, he leaps off the ramp and drops toward the earth.

                Bucky bites back a smile, even as the nervous fluttering in his stomach kicks up a notch. Tony’s been risking his life for years, and he hasn’t lost it once. But that doesn’t make this part any easier, no matter how impressive it is, watching the suit fly right toward danger.

                Beside him, Steve’s fighting his way into a parachute harness. “Guy’s real great at teamwork,” he grouses, conveniently forgetting every single time he chased after a fight with no backup.

                “If you boys jump out of a perfectly good plane,” Natasha says, “you are _walking_ to the nearest pickup site. We can’t land in all those trees.”

                Bucky shrugs. “Tony’ll give me a ride,” he says, as he steps toward the ramp.

                “That’s another thing we don’t have time for!” Natasha yells, just loud enough to be heard over the howling of the wind.

                Bucky laughs. Steve steps up next to him, shield slipping into place on his back. “Ready?” Bucky asks.

                “Always,” Steve says, and then, without a single second of hesitation, he throws himself off the plane.

                Bucky jumps a half-second after him. Visibility is terrible, but he can see, in the distance, the glow of Tony’s repulsors. He does his best to tip himself that direction. And Steve, for his part, follows Bucky.

 

 

 

                By the time Bucky and Steve drop into the fight, the small clearing Thor and Iron Man are brawling in has been lit up by lightning strikes, set the slightest bit on fire, and is littered with broken branches and the fresh corpse of a newly-fallen tree. Bucky’s a bit annoyed that Tony didn’t wait for them before he started having so much fun, but Steve looks positively exasperated.

                “ _Hey_ ,” Steve says, which does nothing to disrupt the fighting.

                “Here,” Bucky says, fighting his way out of the parachute harness. “Let me just---”

                “Is that all this guy does?” Steve asks, with an undercurrent of annoyance that sounds like a rising tide. “Start fights and ditch allies?”

                That isn’t fair. Steve has to _know_ it’s not fair. Maybe he’s mad that Tony’s here, fighting Thor, and Loki isn’t anywhere in sight. Or maybe he’s pissed that Tony jumped into this fight before Steve could.

                Maybe it’s neither one of those things.

                Bucky drops the harness to the dirt a second before Steve does the same with his. “Steve.” He does his best to keep the warning out of his tone. These two aren’t going to find the middle ground if Bucky doesn’t hold the position for them. “Tony’s just--”

                Below them, Thor slams the Iron Man suit halfway across the clearing, and Tony responds by launching himself right at Thor, boot repulsors powered up to a nearly indefensible level. He crashes into him, knocks him back, and then they’re grappling like high schoolers.

                “The hell with this,” Steve says, voice heavy with frustration and disapproval.

                He throws the shield, and it crashes into Thor’s head, ricochets into Iron Man’s chest, and then returns to Steve’s hand. “ _Hey_ ,” he repeats, as he steps forward.

                “Jesus Christ,” Bucky says, almost choking on it. Steve’s shield had missed Tony’s arc reactor by less than an inch, and he knows – he _does_ – that Steve wouldn’t compromise the integrity of the suit, however he feels about the recklessness of its pilot, but Bucky’s taken kill shots without orders when people threatened Tony’s arc reactor.

                Jason – who once replaced the arc reactor, held Tony’s glowing heart in his hands and swapped it out for a new one – has taken kill shots _against_ orders when people got too close to the arc reactor.

                For the second time this mission, Bucky’s glad Jason isn’t here. He would’ve gone right for Loki, and he would’ve gone right for Steve, and Bucky’s not sure he’d blame him for either, but he’s damn sure he wouldn’t want to deal with the fallout.

                “That’s enough,” Steve says, as he moves closer to the pair of them. “Why are you here, and where’s Loki?”

                Thor’s hand curls around his hammer. Bucky steps up next to Steve and exchanges a quick look with Tony.

                Worryingly, Thor doesn’t even seem winded from the fight. “I am here to collect my brother and return him to Asgard.”

                “I’m afraid he’s booked up,” Tony says. “You can have him when we’re done.”

                Thor casts a look Tony’s direction that is more annoyed than angry, but, with that hammer in his hand, Bucky’s not sure he’s comfortable with either. “I am not here to fight you.”

                “Prove it,” Steve says. “Put the hammer down, and we’ll--”

                “Oh, no, nope,” Tony says, hands coming up in warning. “The hammer’s his favorite thing, Cap. Don’t--”

                Thor swings the hammer up, straight into the chest of the Iron Man suit, and it’s too fast to track, but Bucky catches a flash of blue light, like maybe the hammer made contact with the plating near the arc reactor. Something seizes in Bucky’s chest, and, a second later, he has a gun in hand, and Steve’s pulling him down behind the shield.

                Thor’s hammer connects with the shield, and the earth-shattering blast of force that kicks out from the shield levels trees in every direction.

                Steve, Thor, and Iron Man lay sprawled in the dirt, but Bucky’s up immediately, stumbling a little from the lingering dizziness, but angry enough to keep moving. He tackles Thor, drops the gun, clenches his metal hand around Thor’s throat, and slams his head back into the dirt.

                “Attack us again,” Bucky says, tightening his grip, “and neither of you will ever make it home.”

                “Let me up.” Thor shifts under him, and Bucky can feel all the strength in him, knows he’s outclassed. He doesn’t care.

                Bucky wonders if he has the strength to kill him. He wonders what the final math would be if he did, if killing Thor would save lives or cost them.

                And then he hears footsteps behind him, and he forces himself to let go, stand up. “This isn’t your world, and we aren’t your people. You throw another tantrum like that, and you could kill every human around. Act right, or go home. We’ve already got one of you dropping bodies in the streets.”

                Tony steps up next to Bucky. “And where _is_ that sneaky little bastard, anyway?”

                Thor rubs at his throat and stands. His eyes move to a ridge a fair distance away. “Up there.”

                “He’s in our custody,” Steve says. He isn’t looking at Tony or Bucky. The tense line of his shoulders and the mean set of his mouth indicates he’s probably angry at both of them. “Is that going to be a problem?”

                Thor considers the three of them. If it _is_ a problem, Bucky’s not sure it’ll be one they win. But he’s damn sure that if that hammer goes anywhere near Steve or Tony again, he’s going to bury it and its wielder under six feet of Earth soil.

                Finally, Thor sighs and turns his eyes back toward Loki. “I will take Loki with me, when I leave. But if there are questions you must ask him first, I suppose I have no objections. But I will warn you not to trust his answers. My brother is a gifted liar.”

                “Super,” Tony says. There are deep scratches on the surface of his armor, but the damage seems mostly superficial. “Good talk. I absolutely understand why we had to have this discussion down here instead of up in that plane you made all of us jump out of.”

                “Iron Man,” Steve says. His tone is harsh. Bucky doesn’t appreciate it.

                “Let’s get Loki,” Bucky says, breaking off the fight before it can start. He’s tired, already, of playing refereeing.

                And if it’s this bad with Tony, the charmer of the group, he can’t imagine what kind of nightmare is going to manifest when Steve meets Jason for the first time.

 

 

 

                After they collect Loki, who doesn’t even bother to put up the faintest hint of resistance as soon as he sees his brother is with them, they make their way back down to the clearing. Tony steps away to contact the quinjet, and Bucky corners Steve.

                “Steve,” he says, “don’t ever throw the shield that close to the arc reactor again.”

                Steve gives him a confused look that goes increasingly offended the longer Bucky stares at him. “Wasn’t gonna hit it, Buck,” Steve says, slowly. “I know it powers the suit.”

                Bucky has never had cause to question Steve’s aim. But they’ve got gods slinging lightning and brain-wiping Superman, and he’s not comfortable with any margin of error.

                Less than ten people at SHIELD know that Tony’s in the Iron Man suit. Less than five know that Tony needs the arc reactor to live.

                He swallows. Across the clearing, he sees Tony, chatting with Thor, like they weren’t throwing each other through trees twenty minutes ago. Tony, who fought a god in a suit he made out of metal. Tony, who isn’t a solider and can’t stop going to war anyway.

                “It’s important,” Bucky says. “Don’t ever do it again.”

                Steve’s quiet. He’s staring at Iron Man, eyebrows pulled together, mouth pressed flat. “Okay, Buck,” he says, with a slow nod. “I won’t.”

                “Thanks.” Bucky breathes out. “And don’t tell Jason you did it even once.”

                Steve tips his head back. There’s an expression on his face that Bucky can’t quite read, which is jarring all on its own. When Steve looks over at him, Bucky deciphers that at least part of what Steve’s feeling is anger, and it’s directed at him.

                “How many secrets about me are you gonna keep from him, Bucky?” Steve hefts the shield, arm tightening in the straps. “Just so I can keep it all straight, if I ever meet him.”

                Bucky sighs. “Jason,” he says, with a waver-y, almost helpless gesture. “Jason needs special handling sometimes. He’s got—he can get angry.”

                Steve snorts, and an ugly look crosses his face and then disappears. “Yeah,” he says, “I read his file.”

                “Don’t,” Bucky says. “You read his file, and you read mine. Which one of us killed more innocent people?”

                “That’s not fair, Buck,” Steve says. “Hydra brainwashed you. He’s not brainwashed. He’s just--”

                “Stop.” Bucky doesn’t want to know what Steve thinks Jason is. He knows that if you reduce a person to their worst aspects, you can make monsters out of saints. And none of them have ever been saints.

                He doesn’t want to hear it from Steve, who was born good and fought off every force that tried to remake him into something else.

                Steve shakes his head and looks away. He readjusts the shield on his arm. “I should’ve been here,” he says, finally. It sounds like a confession. “I’m sorry, Buck. I left you. I didn’t go looking, and I let them take you, and now--”

                “And now _what_?” Bucky sidesteps the rest of it. He doesn’t want to think about it. Not now, not ever. He doesn’t want to think about him, frozen in a cryo chamber, and Steve, frozen in the ocean.

                “I should’ve been here,” Steve says. The way he sets his jaw says pretty clearly that he doesn’t have anything else to say.

 

 

 

                Natasha has the SHIELD pilot land the quinjet in the middle of the clearing they’ve just expanded by about an acre in every direction. She steps lightly off the plane and goes to stand in the middle of it, hands on her hips. She turns slowly in a complete circle, taking in the level of the destruction.

                “Gentlemen,” she drawls, “this is not what I meant when I said I needed a landing site.”

                “Just a bit of grounds-keeping,” Tony says, innocently.

                Natasha raises her eyebrows. “This is a national park. Do you have any idea how much we’re going to owe the nation of Germany?”

                “Protected species live here,” the pilot says, leaning out of the plane. “Wolves,” he adds. “And I think some kind of otter.”

                Iron Man shifts around to stare in the direction of the pilot, who, impressively, holds his ground. “Sorry,” Iron Man says, after a moment. “Guess Spangles got carried away while we were trying to save every protected species on the planet.”

                “Don’t call me that,” Steve says, immediately.

                Iron Man salutes him, every inch of the gesture something between a joke and an insult. “Roger, Rogers.”

                “Let’s load up,” Bucky says, before Steve and Tony can get into an argument over how they’re meant to address each other. “Nat, update Coulson. Let him know Thor's visiting.”

                Natasha looks Thor’s direction. After a moment, Thor lifts his head and meets her stare, and a look of quiet assessment passes between them. “Barton likes you,” she says. Thor blinks and doesn’t seem to understand the weight Clint’s character assessment carries with her. “You’re lucky. If he didn’t, I’d make you ride strapped to the roof.”

                Thor’s still for a second and then he smiles, broad and seemingly geniune. “You are welcome to try.” It sounds less like he’s inviting her to attempt to murder him and more like he’s arranging a drunken arm-wrestling match.

                “No, thanks,” Natasha says, turning toward the quinjet. “I’m not the designated interplanetary diplomacy disaster on the team.” She casts a quick look back toward Bucky. “Speaking of, Coulson just called. Jason’s on his way in.”

                “Well, look at that,” Tony says. “The boys are back in town.”

                Bucky’s not sure, in that moment, if he’s more worried about Jason meeting Steve or Loki. But the shifting, skittering feeling of dread brewing in his chest suggests an upcoming disaster.


	6. Chapter 6

                Jason jerks awake when the quinjet touches down. He yawns and rubs at his face, shaking away the daze of sleep, and, when he blinks his eyes open, he focuses automatically on Coulson and Natasha, standing in the hangar, waiting for him.

                “Are you pissing yourself?” the copilot asks, staring out at the two of them. “Because they aren’t even here for me, and I’m kinda pissing myself.”

                 “They aren’t _that_ mad,” Jason says. They are, after all, still here to greet him.

                Granted, they always are. _Someone_ always is.

                No one ever pushes Bucky to make kills when he balks, sends Nat to bust trafficking rings without prep, asks Clint to make any kill that isn’t quick or clean, or tells Tony that his help isn’t wanted. And someone is always around when Jason comes home. It’s not that the team has rules, exactly. It’s just they’ve learned, over time, what it takes to stay a team.

                “Okay,” the co-pilot says. “You mind going out first, then? Human shield a bit? Not sure I want my face associated with you right now.”

                Jason laughs, startled into it. “He always such a sweetheart?” he asks, tipping his head toward the pilot.

                She glances his way, and it’s jarring, when he realizes he knows her. “Any word on Agent Barton?” Her voice is soft and steady, a little like Alfred’s used to get, back when Jason would catch colds on patrol.

                “Shit,” Jason says. He’d read his mission briefings, marveled for about two minutes at the resurrection of Captain America, and then passed the hell out. He’s been on her plane for hours, and he hadn’t even bothered to place her. “You taught Clint to fly.”

                She shrugs. “I was part of his training crew.”

                It’s one of Clint’s most useful and most troubling virtues, the way he constantly picks up new skills. He’s an archer, and a sniper, and a fighter, and a gymnast, and a pilot. He can count cards and pick pockets and do just enough street magic to draw a crowd.

                It’d be impressive, except Jason’s pretty sure that the motivating factor is that Clint still thinks he has to earn his keep. Like, in his head, the bar’s always rising, and he has to rise with it or be set aside.

                Jason knows what that’s like. He’s not sure he copes any better than Clint does.

                “We’re looking for him,” Jason says, finally.

                She nods. He doesn’t know what the look on her face is. It’s related to disappointment, but still a touch too soft to make his skin crawl with shame. “I heard his kill count’s in the double digits now.”

                “Jesus, Garcia.” The co-pilot looks outraged on Jason’s behalf. “This is why we don’t let you talk to passengers. Cut the guy a damn break. He’s hunting a superspy.”

                “We’re worried,” she says. She doesn’t say who’s worried. She doesn’t have to. Barton was practically raised in SHIELD. Jason’s not sure Clint ever noticed the number of fans he has, the way a cafeteria or mission briefing can light up when he walks in, but Jason’s never had any doubt that, out of all of them, out of the entire team, Clint’s the SHIELD sweetheart.

                “I’m gonna get him back,” Jason says. “ _We_ are. We’re gonna get him back.”

                She looks at him. She’s older than he is, closer to Coulson’s age. He wonders how many SHIELD agents she’s flown to their last mission, how many fresh young faces passed in front of her eyes, out of her plane, and came carried back as corpses, if they came back at all.

                There’s a knowledge, shared between them.

                They’ll get part of him back. They’ll get _something_ of him back. But there’s no telling, when this is over, how much of him will be left.  

                “We’re worried,” she says again, tone softer than it has to be, kinder than he deserves. “About all of you.”

                “Hey, man,” the co-pilot says, a second later. “Be fucking careful out there, yeah? I _really_ don’t want your job.”

                Jason feels himself smile as he stands up, stretches the stiffness out of his joints. He’s still tired; he should sleep for another couple hours. He knows, already, that he probably won’t get the chance. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Nobody on this team has clearance to stay dead.”

                The co-pilot laughs like it’s funny, Garcia frowns like it isn’t, and Jason bails out of the plane before he feels obligated to make a judgment call either way.

 

 

 

                Coulson and Natasha take him straight to a briefing room. Natasha spends half the walk with her arm looped through Jason’s. Coulson, for his part, hands Jason a bottle of water as soon as he sees him and then, once they’re in the room, he passes him a cup of coffee before he makes his own.

                They’re lost, both of them. Just a little. Well, it makes sense. Clint’s the easiest, the most amiable member of the team. He and Natasha are almost never more than arms’ length apart if they’re in the same room, and Clint leans into Coulson’s secret mothering habit like a flower turning toward sunlight. Without Clint, it makes sense that Jason would be catching more of their attention.

                It’s just that, usually, when Natasha can’t cuddle up to Clint, she’ll find Tony. And Bucky takes to being looked after with the casual non-reaction of someone who’s had handlers for decades.

                “Hey, Coulson,” Jason says, as he drinks the coffee that’s been perfectly doctored to his preferences, because Coulson harnesses his spook powers for all kinds of small miracles. “Where’s my team?”

                A slow, crooked smile blooms across Natasha’s face. There are just enough teeth to kick up a reflexive answering grin on Jason’s face. “J,” she says, leaning forward, “you’re not gonna believe what we picked up in Germany.”

                “Oh, yeah?” Jason glances toward Coulson for confirmation, but Coulson just takes his seat at the head of the table and slides a new comm unit his way. “If it’s a blonde with a waist-to-shoulder ratio that is, frankly, absolute bullshit, you’ve been scooped by half the major news outlets in the world and two separate SHIELD briefings.”

                Natasha’s smirk twists wider. “This one wears a cape and has a hammer.”

                “No shit?” Jason raises his eyebrows and adjusts the comm unit, fitting it into his ear. “We get a two-for-one deal on Asgardian political prisoners, Coulson?”

                “Thor is not a prisoner. He’s a guest.” The way Coulson says _guest_ suggests it might be too welcoming a word. He assesses Jason carefully, and Jason holds still for it, lets Coulson decide for himself that he doesn’t need to go to Medical.

                “Didn’t even get a nosebleed, Coulson. I’m field ready.” Jason glances toward the door, but the rest of his team is still missing, and there aren’t enough chairs at the table for them anyway. “Did Bucky and Tony run off with Captain America already? Because, given the length of our relationship, I think I’m owed at least one screaming fight on a lawn.”

                Natasha’s smirk loses its mischief. “Cap and Stark have a real love affair brewing. I’d definitely be worried, if I were you.”

                Jason blinks. His eyes dart to Coulson, whose face is carefully blank, and then back to Nat. “Son of a bitch,” he says.

                Tony’s the _nice_ one. And Bucky’s missed this guy for years. Every Fourth of July, they have to drag Bucky out of the pit of his memories. There was a time, after Bucky discovered the exhibit, that the staff at the Smithsonian had Jason’s phone number on file, just in case Bucky spent too much time there, loitered to the point that it started weirding people out.

                It’s a good thing, Steve Rogers being back from the dead. If he _is_ back from the dead.

                The body Jason’s in today is the body he was born in, but he isn’t really the same Jason that Bruce buried. And Bucky’s still Bucky, but it’s been decades since he was James Buchannan Barnes. They may have defrosted Captain America, but Jason’s not sold on the idea the person they’re dealing with is Steve Rogers.

                The Atlantic Ocean is not a Lazarus Pit or a cryo chamber, but Jason’s never met a resurrection that didn’t leave its mark one way or another.

                Jason tilts his head back to think it over. “O Captain, our Captain, is kind of an asshole?” he asks, just for clarification.

                Natasha shrugs. “He’s a liability.”

                “He’s overwhelmed,” Coulson counters.

                They’re probably both right. Natasha sees flaws and vulnerabilities, draws them out to their probable conclusions. Coulson sees strengths and weaknesses in equal measure, tends to understand people as functional wholes rather than as specific traits that can be manipulated for precise purposes.

                Natasha sees how to use people. Coulson sees how they can be useful. And right now, looking at Steve Rogers, they’re seeing trouble.

                “Are you suggesting,” Jason says, feigning amazement, “that we need to bench Captain America?”

                “He should be drinking chamomile tea in a low-stress environment,” Natasha says. “Lukewarm chamomile tea. In a mountain cabin. Possibly at a yoga retreat.”

                “He’s gonna lose it, huh?” Jason figures that’s fair. When he came back from the dead, he attacked Tim, almost killed Batman, and took a Batarang to the throat before he calmed the fuck down.

                Sometimes a bit of heavy bloodletting does wonders for the blood pressure. But Rogers crashed into the Atlantic after fighting in one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, so maybe he’s done enough bloodletting.

                “He’s having some trouble adjusting.” Coulson takes a drink of coffee after he says it, but Jason doesn’t miss the brief, unhappy expression that crosses his face. He gets a flash of Coulson’s Captain America trading cards, remembers how, two Christmases ago, the whole team had pulled together to track down and legally acquire the single missing card in his collection.

                This, Jason thinks, is the problem with meeting your heroes. Either they get you murdered by their enemies, or they show up and act just human enough to shatter your illusions.

                His eyes are draw again toward the door. He wants Bucky and Tony in the room. For a dozen reasons, but mostly so he can ask them what they think about Steve Rogers. Bucky’s view will be clouded, but it’d be good to know where he stands.

                “Where’s my team?” he asks, because he can’t bite it back any longer.

                Coulson reaches for his tablet and starts tapping at the screen. The screen behind him brightens and then flips to two separate camera feeds. One shows Tony and Bruce Banner standing in front of a bank of computers, heads cocked at nearly identical angles, mouths pursed in matching thoughtful frowns. The other feed shows Bucky and Steve, sitting around an otherwise empty table, talking.

                 “Stark and Banner are in a lab, ostensibly trying to find the Cube,” Coulson says. “I think Stark’s hacking SHIELD again, but I have no idea what he thinks he’s looking for, so I’m not committed to stopping him.”

                Jason grins, not even trying to keep the fondness off his face. “Maybe he’s just giving me another raise.”

                “Oh, I’ll take one,” Nat says. “And Clint needs hazard pay.”

                “Clint’s already getting hazard pay,” Coulson says. “We all are. I don’t know if you’re aware, but a hostile force has stolen the Tesseract and acquired enough Iridium to keep a portal of any size open for as long as he wants. That’s the sort of thing that implies an invasion.”

                “Hazard pay,” Jason says, with a cheer he doesn’t feel. “Good. Tony, Bucky, and I need another island.”

                “I’m glad you’re taking this so well,” Coulson says. “Stark thinks he’s identified the power source Loki’s going to use to kickstart the Tesseract.”

                Jason doesn’t like the look on Coulson’s face, or the sympathetic grimace he gets from Nat. “Yeah?”

                “Stark Tower’s arc reactor,” Nat says. “Bad luck.”

                “Son of a bitch,” Jason says, deeply offended. “I keep my shit there. _JARVIS_ lives there. If Loki invites his alien frat boys down to trash the place, I’m torching Asgard.”

                “Not sure he’d mind if you did,” Nat says. “It’s a little difficult to parse from Thor’s sonnets, but I think Loki had a falling out with Asgard. Apparently, he’s not actually Odin’s son.”

                Jason lets his head fall back against the chair. “I cannot believe,” he says, “that we’re having our whole weekend ruined by some witchy alien with daddy issues.”

                “We might have our whole _planet_ ruined.” Coulson’s voice is steady as always, but Jason knows he means it. If Coulson didn’t have a world to save, the whole team would be on the ground, chasing after Clint.

                “Alright,” Jason says, refocusing. “Have we questioned Loki yet?”

                Coulson frowns. “Fury’s working on Thor. He’s the best positioned. Familiar with Loki, familiar with this weak points.”

                “Familiar with his pain tolerance,” Natasha adds, casually.

                “Huh.” Jason trades a long, assessing look with Coulson. “That’s where we’re at? Asking Thor about his brother’s pain tolerance?”

                “It is possible,” Coulson says, without blinking or breaking eye-contact, “that we are somewhat desperate.”

                Jason shrugs. “Well, I’ve got no objections. I want Clint home as fast as possible. I doubt the Asgardians signed the Geneva Convention before they came down here and started fuckig around.”

                “Loki doesn’t represent Asgard,” Coulson says. “Which is for the best, since we don’t have the weapons to fight them.”

                “If we kill him quietly enough,” Jason says, “no one’s gotta know we did it.”

                Across the table, Natasha grins her wolfish grin, Jason’s favorite grin. It’s the kind of grin that usually makes Coulson anxious about mission protocols, but, this time, when he looks up and his eyes track from Jason to Nat, an answering smile simmers its way to the surface, like maybe Coulson’s boiling with just as much rage as they are.

                Loki really should’ve considered who he was fucking with before he stole their archer.

                “Hm,” Natasha says, suddenly, and Jason follows her gaze to the TV screen.

                Bucky is alone at the table, head in his hands. For several long, unpleasant seconds, Steve Rogers is absolutely nowhere. Then he materializes in the lab with Bruce and Tony, and all three of them watch in silence as what is clearly an unpleasant conversation starts.

                “Christ,” Jason says, watching it play out. “This guy really doesn’t like Tony?”

                “He doesn’t seem to like any of us.” Coulson sounds like he’s working not to take that personally. It must be causing some cognitive dissonance for him, having his hero dislike his team.

                “We shouldn’t meet new people without Clint,” Jason says, decisively. “It’s that sweet face of his. And all those Pop-Tarts he hands out. People love him.”

                “I’ve been thinking,” Natasha says, in the deliberate tone she uses when she’s laying the puzzle pieces of someone else’s psyche carefully into place. “I’ve been thinking about how I would react if I work up decades into the future, and Barton had a metal arm and told me Hydra used to brainwash him, and then all these strangers in dark suits sent us to kill for them.”

                Jason blinks. He kicks the idea around in his head. “You think he thinks we’re Hydra?”

                She shrugs. “I think, from his perspective, there’s no way to be sure we’re not. The only person he knows here is Bucky, and Bucky, by his own admission, has been flipped in the past.”

                Jason watches the back-and-forth between Tony and Steve on the screen. Tony can look after himself, and, whatever Steve’s saying, Tony’s heard worse from reporters his whole life.

                That doesn’t make it any easier to watch, but Jason doesn’t climb to his feet until Bucky stands up. Steve can fight with Tony all he wants, but there’s no way in hell Jason’s going to let Steve make Bucky feel like he’s got to choose between them.

                “Alright,” Jason says, throwing back the last of his coffee. “Looks like I’m up. I’ll just put on my charming face, smooth things over a bit. Bring the good captain into the fold.”

                Natasha and Coulson share a brief look. Their expressions are not exactly encouraging.

                “God help us,” Coulson says. His delivery is completely deadpan, and Jason figures that’s probably because he’s being completely earnest.

 

 

 

                When Jason walks into the lab, he intends – fully and completely, with every peaceable inclination he has – to find a diplomatic way forward. The problem is that he’s never had much luck with peace, and he’s been something of a lifelong failure at diplomacy.

                The other problem is that Tony’s capable of taking care of himself, but not always inclined to do it. It’s become something of a habit, fighting the battles Tony won’t.

                Steve’s leaning into Tony’s space, and Tony, for his part, is squinting at Steve like he’s something unpleasant that gained sentience in a lab he forgot about.

                “---big man with a suit of armor,” Rogers says. “Take that away, and what are you?”

                “Hey,” Jason says, stepping into the room. Behind him, he hears Coulson draw in a sharp breath, like he’s going to intervene, but he gets distracted when Bucky comes trotting up, looking alarmed.

                “Jason,” Bucky calls out, probably because, even at twenty yards out, he can see exactly where this is headed.

                In the lab, the spat between Rogers and Tony has gotten uglier. Jason thinks about letting Bucky handle this. He _intends_ to. But then Rogers keeps talking, and Jason makes the mistake of listening.

                “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the man to make the sacrifice play, to lay down---”

                Jason punches him right in his Goddamn face. “Keep running your mouth, Captain Throwback,” he invites, tensing up to do it again if he needs to. “I’ll knock all those pretty teeth out.”

                “Jason,” Coulson says, hand covering his face. “Jason, no.”

                “Jason,” Bucky says, sounding somewhere between exasperated and wrecked. “ _No_.”

                Jason bounces on the balls of his feet and raises his eyebrows, and he thinks that’ll be the end of it, the way it’s usually the end of it with big, snotty bullies, but Steve Rogers takes the punch, assesses the new target, and then throws himself right at it.

                Jason’s impressed by his pluck, but resolves to kick his ass anyway.

                And so that’s how Jason Todd meets Captain America.

                It’s a fight. Of course it’s a fight. Rogers shows up, breaks Bucky’s heart just by breathing, and all but spits in Tony’s face, and there was no other way this could ever go.

                The fight ends seconds later when Nat hooks an arm around Jason’s throat and Bucky gets a decent grip on the back of Steve’s shirt. Rogers throws one last parting shot, whacking him across the face with a punch that hurts almost as much as one from Bucky’s metal arm, and Jason spits at him, just because he can, just to even things up a bit.

                “Cut it _out_ , Cap,” Jason says. “It’s over. We’ve got grownup shit to do.”

                “Grownup shit,” Rogers repeats, tightening his _God Bless America_ jawline. There’s something I his eyes, in that moment, that Jason recognizes.

                “You hit him again,” Tony says, “and I’ll blast your head off. You’re not the first of Dad’s projects that needed a revamp.”

                “Buck,” Steve says, as he uses his sleeve to wipe Jason’s spit off his face. “ _These_ two? Really?”

                “Yeah,” Bucky says. He looks wilder around the eyes than he ever usually gets. “These two.”

                Rogers tugs his sleeve back into place and glances between Jason and Tony. He opens his mouth like he’s got more opinions to share, looks briefly at Bucky, and then, after clenching his jaw so hard it looks like he’s going to crack a molar, he leaves.

                “Nice guy, Buck,” Jason says. “Is it gonna piss you off if I ask him to be my best man?”

                The look Bucky gives him is too exhausted to be annoyed, but, for a second, it tries its best. Then he sighs and moves forward, curls a gentle hand around Jason’s chin so he can check the lip Steve bloodied. “You should put ice on that,” he says, quietly.

                Jason smirks and then leans forward and presses a hard, smacking kiss to Bucky’s cheek. It leaves a faint, reddish outline on Bucky’s skin. “Missed you, too, sweetheart. You have fun with all your secrets?”

                “I never do.” He sounds like he means it, but also like he’d do it again.

                Tony sidles close, fingers reaching up to brush the blood off Jason’s face, and Jason catches his hand, tugs him closer, kisses him full on the mouth in front of everyone. He’s not the jealous type, really, but it won’t hurt Banner to know that Tony Stark, with all his genius and all his charms, is very taken.

                Once he feels like the point has been made, he steps back. “Is anyone else worried about the security risk that just flounced out of here?” he asks, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

                “Sure wasn’t worried about him,” Coulson says, with the idle unconcern of someone discussing the weather, “when he was in the room.”

                Jason rolls his eyes. “Talk shit, get hit, Coulson. He’s been out of the ice long enough to know that. Bucky’s been neglecting his education.”

                “I’m sorry,” Banner says. There’s a look on his face like he’s suddenly realized he’s on the wrong side of the glass at the zoo. “We’re worried about _my_ anger problems?”

                Bucky sighs and reaches up to push his hair out of his face. Jason grimaces, tracks all the subtle signs of exhaustion. He’s never seen the cost of resurrection from this side before.

                “Yeah,” Jason says, “okay. I’ll go after him.”

                “Excellent,” Coulson says. “I’ll alert Medical.”

                “I’ll find a mop,” Natasha offers.

                “Ha,” Jason says, flatly. “Everybody shut up. It’s gonna be fine.”

                “I’ll go,” Bucky says. “I can calm him down.”

                The last thing Jason wanted, when he came spitting out of the Lazarus Pit, was to be calmed down. “No,” he says. He reaches out, curls a hand around Bucky’s shoulder. “Time to cut those apron strings, Buck.”

                When Jason died, Alfred missed him. Grayson missed him. Bruce, in his way, was broken in half by how much he missed a version of Jason that maybe never existed. But they all moved on without him, because however it happens – bleeding out from shrapnel and blunt force trauma, or drowning in the Atlantic – death only stops the person it happens to.

                Jason knows what it’s like, trying to find your footing in a world that’s spun on without you. And calling Tony a coward is unforgivable, but, in the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not any more unforgivable than beating the shit out of a teenage Robin and ripping the “R” off his chest.

                Jason knows the importance of family. He died for the dream of one. And if that’s what this is, if that’s who Rogers is, then he’s going to fix this for Bucky. Half his team has no family at all, and he knows, from experience, that it’s a shit-poor way to live.

                “Find the Cube,” Jason says, as he moves toward the door. “Find Barton. I’ll go get Rogers.”

                “I should go with you,” Bucky argues. “He doesn’t even know you.”

                “Don’t worry,” Jason says. “We’re gonna bond over shared life experiences.”

                Like dying young and coming back to realize it hadn’t made much of a difference.

                As he steps into the hallway and breaks into a jog, he thinks they should’ve called him in hours ago. He is, after all, SHIELD’s reigning expert on recruiting super soldiers in crisis.


	7. Chapter 7

                Steve Rogers moves _fast_. Jason should’ve expected it. He’s seen how fast Bucky can be. But Bucky’s more of an observe-and-wait type, likes to slip in and out of places without being seen or noticed, doesn’t mind playing the long game provided that no one notices he’s playing a game at all.

                Steve Rogers, on the other hand, seems to be of the opinion that it doesn’t matter if people notice he’s up to shit, because no one is gonna be fast enough to stop him.

                Jason, when he catches up, is damn near out of breath, and that’s the kind of professional embarrassment he can’t easily forgive. “Jesus Christ, Cap,” he says, as he hauls himself up onto the catwalk Steve Rogers just effortlessly gazelle’d his way up to. “It’s almost like you want to be alone.”

                “Why are you following me?” Steve asks, without once glancing his way. Which really only nurtures the idea that Steve _slowed down_ to let Jason catch up. “You want another round?”

                “I want a round of tequila shots and a quiet night on a beach,” Jason says. “I want Bucky to stop looking like someone murdered a puppy. And, since you asked, I _do_ kinda want another round, but I think you and I should schedule that for a time when we don’t have to save the whole fucking world.”

                “Is that what we’re doing?” Steve Roger’s eyes are a jarring shade of blue, but the anger behind them feels almost steadying. Jason knows what to do with anger.

                “Sure,” Jason says, with a shrug. “In our spare time.”

                Rogers frowns at him and then pivots, starts down the catwalk with an efficiency of motion that Jason begrudgingly admires.

                There’s something in the way he moves that reminds him of Dick Grayson. It’s that easy, unconscious grace, an innate knowledge of his body’s capabilities, the constant awareness of the exact breadth of his reach and strength in his muscles.

                The punch that split his lip, though, reminds Jason of himself. It’s the kind of punch people throw when they learn it too young, when they don’t have the strength to protect themselves and have to overcompensate with desperate, knuckle-sacrificing will.

                “SHIELD,” Steve says, with a sneer in his voice that makes Jason daydream about suckerpunching him in the back of the head. “I hear you’re the good guys now.”

                “Oh, shit,” Jason says, eyebrows ticking upwards. “We gonna have a talk about morality, old man? You sure you’ve got the high ground? The way Bucky tells it, your war got pretty ugly, too.”

                Steve’s shoulders pull tight. “Your reports log your civilian casualties,” he tells him, like that’s supposed to be a surprise. Like Jason hasn’t submitted those numbers himself, counted them himself, carried still-breathing, panicky, death-rattling people to the medics and had them turn into bodies on the way.

                “Cool,” Jason says. “Starting with a low blow. Nice.”

                Steve pauses. When he glances back, the look on his face is weirdly reminiscent of the blankness Bucky used to show, when he was retreating into the Winter Soldier. Seeing that expression on Rogers’ face leaves Jason with the uncomfortable notion that maybe that protective numbness predates Hydra.

                “We didn’t count,” Steve says. “People made mistakes. Sometimes, with some of the units we worked with, I don’t think they were mistakes.”

                Jason is something of an expert on rage. He knows about anger. Anger is a blood clot, forming over something worse. Pick the scab too early, and God knows what nightmares will seep out. But leave it alone too long, and everything underneath can fester.

                Bucky never had much rage. With Bucky, it’s always been guilt and fear and the desperate need to never let what happened to him happen to anyone else.

                With Steve, it looks like there’s something else. Maybe he’s got enough anger for the both of them.

                “This whole time,” Steve says, “I’ve been reading these reports, trying to work out what it means that you count all those bodies and then go out and make more.”

                Jason bites back his instinctive reply. It’s hard to be sincere about these kind of things. Every instinct says to flinch away from vulnerability. “It holds us accountable,” he says, when he can force it past his teeth.

                “Does it?” Steve asks. It’s a hell of a thing to say. “And who are you accountable to?”

                “You think Hydra would count bodies? For what fucking purpose? To hand out medals to whoever gets the highest kill count? Christ. We burned them out of SHIELD. We killed all of them, everywhere we can find. I know that’s your thing, fighting Hydra. But you’re late to the game. We did it for you. You gotta find something else.”

                “Something else to fight?” Steve turns to face him. He’s not much bigger than Jason, not really. Jason’s bulkier everywhere but the shoulders, but facing off against him doesn’t exactly make Jason feel overconfident.

                _Fucking super soldiers_ , Jason thinks. He wonders if they’re going to have that second round, right here, on this bullshit catwalk, where anyone who falls is going to get broken legs at best.

                “You going to tell me who to fight?” His voice is quiet, but the look in his eyes is about as subtle as a pistol to the temple.

                Jason feel something stupid stirring in his chest, something that wants to laugh, wants the challenge, wants the fight. He grins. “Cap,” he says, “I’m only here because my boyfriend needs a Goddamn break. But afterwards? After we settle this alien bullshit? If you and I don’t get a chance to fight it out, it’s gonna break my fucking heart.”

                Steve sizes him up with the slow, systematic assessment of a professional. It makes Jason damn near bounce on his toes, ready for the fight, ready for a chance to get all the tension out into the open, work the rage he feels about Barton into someone else’s bones.

                “Your SHIELD file’s incomplete,” Rogers says, when his eyes finally settle back on Jason’s.

                Jason smirks. God bless Coulson and his spooky machinations. Of course the SHIELD file they gave this defrosted relic was incomplete. No way in hell was Coulson going to hand all his team’s secrets to a newcomer.

                Jason’s willing to bet the files on him and Natasha were particularly light. Because if this goes bad and Steve Rogers turns into something they need to put down, it’s going to be him and Nat. Which is fine, really, because if it goes bad, it’s going to go the kind of bad that means Jason _wants_ Nat beside him, with her knives, and her Bites, and her ruthless application of skill.  

                “Captain,” Jason says, “are you accusing us of keeping secrets?”

                Steve frowns. “Your file says you’re human,” he says, after a moment.

                Jason’s been accused of a lot of things, but, usually, when people call him a monster, they mean it metaphorically. “You think I’m something else?”

                “I think the file’s incomplete,” Steve repeats. “There are years with no activity. Full years, completely blank. And there’s nothing in your file that identifies you as enhanced, but you’re not aging.”

                Jason blinks. This, he thinks, is the problem with outsiders. Sometimes they notice things that everyone else has the grace to ignore.

                “I’m aging,” Jason says. “I think I’ve aged thirty years in this conversation alone. I think the whole world’s on fire, and we’re talking about paperwork.”

                Steve considers him. Jason wonders what he’s thinking. He can see why he’s suspicious. If Coulson blacked out the whole resurrection, redacted the Pit, and omitted his near-murder of Batman, then all Steve sees is that Jason is missing for years and comes back with lingering unexplained oddities.

                Well, the Pit never did like having its work undone. Jason’s hard to kill, and he’s disinclined to age, but he’s not impervious to either. He _is_ aging. Probably faster than Bucky, but definitely slower than Tony.

                They don’t talk about it. Someday they’ll have to, but, for now, they ignore it. It’d be nice, if someone filled in the new kid.

                “What’re you thinking, Cap? I’m another failed experiment?” Jason tips his head to the side. “Think I got another knockoff super soldier serum?”

                “Seems to be a theme,” Steve says, evenly enough.

                “Well, I hate to disappoint, but I got fucked up in a way that’s got nothing to do with you and your serum bullshit. I’m from Gotham. We’ve got our own weird shit.”

                Rogers stares at him for a moment and then seems, abruptly, to lose interest in the conversation. He heads deeper into the helicarrier, and Jason follows along as he goes from storage room to storage room, looking for God knows what.

                “Hey, Cap,” Jason says, when they’ve dodged two separate security patrols, and Jason’s already annoyed by the forms he’s going to have to file to update SHIELD’s patrol policies. “If you just tell me what the fuck we’re looking for, I could probably find it faster than you.”

                Steve’s silent as he searches another room, frowning grimly down at stacks and stacks of tactical gear. “Stark says SHIELD’s keeping secrets,” he says, finally. “You’re SHIELD.”

                “Barely,” Jason says. When Steve looks up, brow furrowed, he shrugs. “I’m on Coulson’s team. We’re a little special.”

                They hadn’t even officially been part of SHIELD at first. They’d worked independently to eradicate Hydra. By the time their work was formally recognized, they’d already earned themselves a reputation as a nightmare squad. They aren’t lawless, exactly, but they’ve never operated fully within the regulations that bind most agents.

                “What’re you doing, Cap?” Jason asks, more intrigued than annoyed. Hell, Tony hacks SHIELD so regularly that trying to kick Tony of the system is some kind of hazing process for every new high-level IT recruit. “What kind of dirt are you digging for?”

                Rogers doesn’t answer. They move again, find another room.  This time, when Rogers opens a container, he finds a cache of Hydra weapons.

                Jason watches him hesitate, hand curled around the edge of the container, and then Steve reaches in and pulls out a gun.

                 “What is this?” He doesn’t sound surprised. He sounds tired. When he looks at Jason, that emptiness is back in his eyes.

                Jason knows what it is. He’s seen those guns in use. He doesn’t know why they’re here, but he’s not exactly surprised to see them. SHIELD doesn’t throw much anyway, particularly when it can be repurposed. His entire team is proof of that.

                “I told you,” Jason says, trying his best to channel the flat, practical tone Nat uses whenever they’ve been caught doing something ludicrous. “We’ve been killing Hydra. Looks like maybe SHIELD kept the guns. What else were they gonna do? Leave them behind?”

                “These should have been destroyed,” Steve says. “All of this should have been destroyed. Why would you keep it if you weren’t planning to use it?”

                Jason wonders exactly what kind of war Steve fought, where he didn’t use every weapon he had.

                “I know you missed the Cold War, but mutually assured destruction is how we live these days. We don’t destroy weapons, Rogers. We hoard them.”

                Steve swallows, jaw tight, eyes flicking away. There’s so much tension in him that Jason kind of wants him to put that gun down. He wonders if this is what it was like – if this is what _he_ was like – when he came out of the Pit. He remembers how hard it was, trying to fit all that rage and grief back under his skin. He remembers how it bled out of him, sometimes. He remembers the cost of that.

                “I know there’s exhibits now. Museums,” Steve says, staring down at the gun. “Maybe you think you understand it better than I do. But I was there, in that war. We fought for peace. We died for it. That’s not what this is.”

                Jason holds his hands up, empty, open, maybe more beseeching than he wants them to be. “We need weapons like that because the other side has them,” he says. “We use them because, if we don’t, they will.”

                He doesn’t know what Steve Rogers wants from him. As far as he can tell, if the world were at peace, there wouldn’t be a place for either one of them.

                “That’s not peace,” Steve says. “That’s not security, or safety. That’s fear. And I know what fear does to people. I know what war does to people. And this world, you, Bucky, _SHIELD_ , you’re at war all the time.”

                “Well, what the fuck do you want me to do? Cue up ‘The Green Fields of France?’ Stop fighting, sign treaties?” He drops his hands to his sides; he’s not trying to prove his innocence anymore. “We don’t all get to fight Nazis, Cap. Sometimes the bad guys are only a little worse than we are, and that’s how it is. Sometimes good people get to stay good because they don’t _have_ to fight. And the only reason they don’t have to is because we do it for them.”

                There’s another flash of that dull, hollowed look, but it disintegrates under the rage that follows. Steve’s hand curls around the Hydra gun so hard that Jason can see the metal starting to dent inwards. “People shouldn’t have weapons like this,” Steve says, “because they’ll use them.”

                “You gonna be everybody’s babysitter, Cap? You gonna go around the playground, taking everybody’s rocks, making us all hold hands?”

                “You’re funny.” It doesn’t sound like a compliment. “You and Stark, you’re funny people.”

                “Keep his name out of your mouth,” Jason advises, “and I’ll let you keep your teeth.”

                Rogers considers him, shoulders back, eyes narrowed, and then he shakes his head, dismissing Jason, and steps past him and toward the door.

                “We’re not Hydra,” Jason tells him, as he goes. “Maybe it’s not Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, but it’s the world we have, and we’re protecting it.”

                “And what happens,” Steve says, turning back to face him, “when you fail? What happens when you’re not around to fight? You think SHIELD’s going to keep these weapons on the sidelines? Deterrent isn’t the plan. They’re building an arsenal, and you’re letting them do it.”

                “I _am_ an arsenal,” Jason says. “We are. My team. We don’t fail.”

                Steve’s chin lifts like he’s bracing for a hit. There’s another flicker in his eyes. “Everybody fails. And when you can’t save the world for them, they’ll destroy it rather than lose it.”

                “What the fuck are you talking about?” For the first time, Jason wishes Bucky were here to translate. This whole conversation reminds him of Bruce Wayne, and he can’t for the life of him figure out why. “Come on, Rogers, you’re a soldier. How can you be this fucking naïve?”

                Steve’s eyes narrow. He looks dangerous, and that’s a victory. Dangerous is better than defeated. Jason came after him to make this _better_.

                “I put that plane in the water,” Steve says, “to prevent a bombing. But all I did was change the target. I saved New York, and then we bombed Japan.”

                Jason blinks. “Jesus Christ,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can manage at the moment.

                “They said we won,” Steve says, eyes shuttered, tone soft like some kind of confession. “They didn’t say what we lost.”

                There’s a moment where neither one of them says anything, and then Rogers shakes his head, resettles his shoulders. “I’m not the one being naïve. They didn’t keep these weapons to put them in the Smithsonian. The second your team can’t get the job done, they’ll do it for you. And then they’ll type up their report, list all the casualties, and I guess we’ll find out who they’re really accountable to.”

                “That’s not going to happen,” Jason says.

                Steve’s hand catches on the door. He gives Jason one last brief look over his shoulder. Jason’s braced for rage, always ready to fight. The pity on Steve’s face catches him off-guard.

                “Yeah, well,” Steve says, as he shoves the door open, “maybe you’ll get lucky like I did, and, when it happens, you won’t be around to watch.”

 

 

 

                Jason’s headed back to the lab, trying to work out if he should warn Coulson, Bucky, or Fury first, when Nat’s voice comes over the comm unit in his ear. “Loki’s trying to use the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab. I’m on my way.” There’s a brief pause, just long enough for Jason to think _oh shit_ , and then she tacks on: “I’d recommend locking down Todd.”

                “Woah,” Jason says, thumbing on his own comm unit. “Jesus, Nat.”

                “He’s got a weird thing for you,” she says, offensively unapologetic. “Banner’s the play, but he’s got something planned for you. Coulson, my recommendation is--”

                “Yes,” Coulson says, evenly, “I heard it. Jason, where are you?”

                “No one’s caging me.” Jason cannot believe he’s hearing this. “What the fuck, Coulson? He’s gonna try to unleash the _Hulk_. We’re already down Barton. I’m not--”

                “No one on this team,” Coulson says, voice at the very highest level of _do not fuck with me right now, Jason, I swear to God_ , “is prepared to fight you.”

                “No one’s _going_ to fight me.” Jason feels something like panic, a noose tightening around his throat. It’s bad enough he’s so far from Barton. He doesn’t know what the hell he’ll do, if he gets pulled away from his team. “He’s just trying to split the team, Coulson. _That’s_ his play. There’s no way we take down the Hulk if we don’t fight together.”

                “The fastest way to split the team,” Natasha says, endlessly calm, ruthlessly practical, “is to turn you against it. You really think Barnes and Stark are going to stick to the mission if the mission means leaving you to Loki?”

                Jason breath catches. He thinks about Bucky, years ago. _If that happens again, if someone uses the words, and we can’t stop them, I want you to shoot me._

He’d made that promise, but he hadn’t asked for one in return. He hadn’t thought he needed to.

“Jason,” Nat says, voice quieter but no less matter-of-fact. “Do you really think _any_ of us would stick to the mission, if he had both of you?”

“Fuck,” Jason says. He understands, suddenly, why there are no lynchpins in the Bat-army. There’s no Robin, no Batgirl, no _Batman_ that can’t be replaced. “Alright,” he says. “Fine. Coulson, come put me on house arrest. I’ll be in the lab.”

“Not a good idea,” Natasha says, almost singsong, which only makes Jason move faster.

He walks into something that is on the verge of becoming an all-out brawl.

The Hydra gun is sitting on a table, and there’s something ominous on one of the screens, something that looks like a missile. Steve and Tony are squared off against Fury, and Jason catches something about nuclear deterrent and weapons development.

“—fucking around with the _Tesseract_?” Tony says, face screwed up like Fury spat in his mother’s face. “Why didn’t you just hold up a big sign that says ‘Hey, universe, we’re ready to rumble?’”

“The world is filling up with people who can’t be matched,” Fury snaps. He jerks a thumb at Thor. “This guy had a family disagreement and _leveled a town_. We need weapons that can counter--”

                “You signaled to everyone listening,” Thor says, “that the earth is ready for a higher form of war.”

“A _higher form_?” Steve says, temper snapping so fast Jason can practically see the mushroom clouds swallowing up every rational thought in his head. “The weapons SHIELD already has could destroy the whole planet. What higher form?”

“You want to remove yourself from this situation, Doctor?” Natasha’s voice breaks through, soft, cajoling. Jason can barely make out the anxiety underneath.

“I was in India,” Banner spits back. “I was removed from the situation. _You_ brought me here.”

“Don’t play into Loki’s hand,” Bucky says, shouldering up next to her. “Don’t get angry. Don’t lose control. Let us take you somewhere you won’t hurt anyone.”

“Where are you going to take me?” Banner says, arms curling around himself like he’s trying to physically hold something back. “You put a sociopath in my room. There’s _nowhere_.”

                “He’s fine,” Tony says, dismissively. “Leave him alone, Buck. He’s fine.”

                “You need to step away,” Fury says to Banner.

                “Don’t patronize him,” Tony says. “Let the guy get mad. What’s gonna happen?”

                “You know damn well what will happen,” Steve says, turning on Tony. “Why don’t you think about everyone on this ship that doesn’t have a metal bodyguard?”

                “You people are so petty,” Thor observes, almost laughing.

                “Go fuck your high horse,” Jason suggests, with perfect diplomatic restraint. “How many humans have you Asgardians killed? You can talk shit when you get your house in order, Goldilocks.”

                Thor raises his eyebrows. Across the room, Banner’s yelling something about trying to eat a bullet.

                “The other guy spat it out,” Banner says, chest heaving, blood veins taking on a disquieting green tint. “So I moved on. It was the only way to go. And I was _fine_. I was good. I wasn’t hurting anyone. And then you dragged me into this freak show. You wanna know my secret? You wanna know how I stay calm?”

                “Kinda want you to put the scepter down,” Jason says, moving forward, putting everyone else in the room behind him. “And then we can share temper tips all Goddamn day, Doc.”

                Bruce blinks. He looks down at Loki’s glowing scepter like he has no idea how it got into his hand.

                A second later, all the computers start beeping, and Banner drops the scepter to turn toward the screens.

                “Found it,” Bruce says, breathing out in a slow, careful exhale. “Guess we’ll share those tips later.”

                “I’m fastest,” Tony says, immediately. “I’ll go.”

                “Like hell,” Jason counters, because Coulson isn’t here to do it for him. “We’re a team. We stay a team.”

                “You need to stay here,” Natasha says. “Loki’s got plans for you.”

                “What?” Bucky says, turning toward Jason.

                “He has what for who?” Tony says, eyes wide.

                “It’s fine,” Jason says, with a wave of his hand. “I’m sure he’s got plans for all of us.”

                They look at him like maybe they’re not going to buy it. But before either one of them can argue, Banner flinches and makes a low, startled noise. “Uh-oh,” he says, quietly.

                “What?” Jason says, turning toward him, every muscle in his body tensing. “What the fuck does that--”

                In the distance, there’s a low, reverberating howl of metal. A half-second later, the whole helicarrier _jerks_ , and Jason realizes, with a sharp, swooping jolt of horror and rage, that the Tesseract is already here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. So I acknowledge that this is kind of a tense moment to hit the "pause" button, but I'm going on an adventure for my birthday. Woo! I'll be gone all of Labor Day weekend, so I'll miss my regular Monday update on 9/3.
> 
> Assuming I manage to stick to a reasonable amount of trouble, I'll be back to my regular posting schedule on 9/10.


	8. Chapter 8

                When the helicarrier jerks underneath them and then, seconds later, an explosion sends the whole room flying, Bucky grabs Jason. He can tell, immediately, that it’s the wrong move. Jason shoots him a disbelieving look and scrambles to his feet, lurches forward to stare down at the empty space that used to be the lab’s glass wall.

                “Christ’s sake, Buck,” Jason says, voice tight. “I fucking _had_ it.”

                He didn’t have it. He was too close to the glass, too close to Banner, closer even than Natasha. Bucky couldn’t have done a damn thing for Banner. He could’ve grabbed Nat or Jason, and, in that instant where choice was still an option, he chose Jason.

                “Sorry,” Bucky says. He isn’t. Jason rolls his eyes, because, if anyone knows what Bucky sounds like when he’s sorry, it’s Jason and Tony.

                Jason prowls the edge of the room, squinting down. “I can see them. I’m gonna--”

                “Jason.” Coulson’s voice is sharp, only a little winded as he climbs to his feet. “We need to get you elsewhere. Immediately.”

                “Oh, come on,” Jason says, wrapping his hand around the metal frame, half through the gap already. “Nat’s down there with--”

                “Romanoff,” Coulson says, into the comm. “Report.”

                There’s no sound for a moment, and then a faint scrambling and a metallic whine from below. “Fine,” she says. “Eyes on Banner. He’s still Banner.”

                “There’s a fire in Engine Three.” Maria Hill’s voice cuts through the comms. “We need someone to get outside the ship and repair it. If we lose another engine, we’re falling.”

                Coulson and Fury exchange a look, and then Fury moves quickly out of the room, probably heading for the bridge. Coulson hesitates, eyes going toward where Natasha fell.

                “Situation contained down here for now,” Natasha says. “It’ll be less contained if we start dropping.”

                Coulson’s still for a second longer before he nods, grim, decisive. “Priority is the engine,” he says. “I need that fixed, Stark.”

                “Guess I’m up,” Tony says, hauling himself up from the entryway he’d crashed into. “But I’m billing SHIELD for emergency repairs. If you’d let me design these things to begin with, no one would be blowing up the damn engines.”

                “Is that really what you’re focusing on right now?” Steve gives Tony a look that Bucky’s glad Jason misses. “Money?”

                “Makes the world go ‘round, Cap,” Tony says. “Or—oh, I’m sorry, do you prefer Comrade America these days? You renounce good old American capitalism?”

                “Jesus,” Jason says, turning on them. “I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but will you two cut it the fuck out for five Goddamn minutes? Our ride is _on fire_ , and Nat just summersaulted through a window with a rage monster. We’ve got too much alien bullshit for this in-fighting right now. We can all scrap later. Let’s fucking _move_.”

                Jason’s halfway to the door when Coulson catches up with him, hooks an arm around Jason’s elbow. “Time to go, Jason,” he says, voice soft and clear, almost an apology.

                Jason stares at him. Bucky knows Jason would backhand damn near everyone in the world for grabbing him like that, except for the people on his team. And Alfred Pennyworth and Maria Stark.

                “You can’t be serious,” Jason says. There’s no apology in his voice. No forgiveness, either. There’s a request though, an appeal that’s too incredulous to be a plea. “Coulson, the ship’s on fire, the _Hulk_ is about sixty seconds out, and Barton is probably here. We’re under attack.”

                “Yes,” Coulson says, “and I’d prefer not to be under attack from you, too.”

                Jason looks at him for a second longer and then looks to Bucky and Tony. Bucky heard Natasha’s recommendation earlier, and Natasha doesn’t make bad calls. When Jason looks his way, Bucky grimaces, but he nods.

                “ _Fuck_ ,” Jason says. And then, “ _Fine_. Christ, Coulson, let’s go.”

                Bucky watches them leave, rushing so Coulson can come back and fix what he can, and then he turns to Tony. “Time for the suit,” he says. “Steve and I will help clear the area.”

                Tony blinks. His eyes go, for a second, to Steve. “Yeah,” he says, stepping away. “I’ll send it.”

                _Tell him_ , Bucky thinks, tries to say with his eyes. _Tell Steve that you **are** Iron Man. _

                He doesn’t want to go into another fight like this. He remembers last time, how close Steve’s shield came to the arc reactor.

                But it isn’t Bucky’s choice. It’s always been Tony’s. Tony doesn’t trust easily, and doesn’t seem to trust Steve Rogers at all.

                “Alright,” he says, when Tony’s steady stare doesn’t falter. “We’ll meet Iron Man there.”

 

 

 

                The explosion knocks Natasha through the window, and she hits hard enough that consciousness flutters briefly, time stretching and then snapping back into place as her brain reboots. She’s lying beneath collapsed piping, and, even when she manages to squirm her way mostly free, her ankle is stuck bad enough that she’s still partially trapped.

                She’s piecing her mind back together when Coulson’s voice speaks in her ear. “Romanoff,” he says, and she closes her eyes, lets his measured tone settle the anxious kick in his heart. “Report.”

                She takes a breath and then shoves at the pipe. It grates against the debris, metal shrieking, but doesn’t move far enough to free her. “Fine,” she says, because no bones are broken, and her awareness is sharpening too quickly for a concussion. “Eyes on Banner. He’s still Banner.”

                It’s not a lie. He _is_ still Banner. But as he shifts around, writhing restlessly on floor, he seems less and less like Bruce Banner and more and more like something else.

                _It’s fine_ , she tells herself. Bucky can lift this pipe easily. Steve Rogers could, and Jason could, as well, if he’s angry enough, which is more or less a given. Coulson and Tony could lift it together, or Iron Man could do it in seconds.

                She is not trapped in a way that justifies alarm. Her team will get her before this is a problem.

                So there is no problem. There is no reason to allow herself to create a problem.

                “There’s a fire in Engine Three,” Hill says, in her ear. “We need someone to get outside the ship and repair it. If we lose another engine, we’re falling.”

                So that’s Tony. That’s Bucky and his super soldier shadow. 

                Coulson and Jason could free her. But Jason needs to be somewhere else.

                She remembers the light in Loki’s eyes, the smile that curled the corners of his mouth. _You and your team, lying and killing in the service of liars and killers. Wolves, playing sheep for blind shepherds. Whatever code you think you have is an illusion, a mad child’s prayer. When I rip out the dead heart of your team, I’ll remake all of you into something better, something honest._

                She remembers the sharp, manic way he’d laughed when she called him a monster.

                _You’re the one who can’t stop collecting monsters._

                Loki cannot get free. Whatever plan he has must be stopped.

                “Situation contained down here for now,” Natasha says, eyes tracing the green beginning to bloom through the blood veins of Banner’s neck. “It’ll be less contained if we start dropping.”

                It’s the right call. She knows that. But it has been years since she felt this small, so high up without a net. She remembers being very young, remembers the rage of her trainers, remembers how anger would make them into something inhuman, remembers the way she felt, curled up small, crouched, shaking at the feet of giants who roared with voices that belonged to bears and trolls and gods.

                It’s nothing. It’s a bad memory. It has no bearing on this situation, and she does her best to dismiss it.

                But there are things that hurt too deep to heal. Sutures don’t hold forever. She acknowledges, even as she tries to regulate the skittering panic building in her chest, that she cannot fully control the fear she has of the Hulk, the learned terror of being small when the thing that wants to hurt her is towering and uncontainable.

                She waits, gives him time to self-correct, and, when he doesn’t, she tries to intervene.

                “Doctor,” she says, and then, re-tracking, “Bruce. Don’t do this. Stay with me. This is what Loki wants from you. Don’t give it to him.”

                He shoves himself up on his hands and knees. There’s a deep, rumbling growl that builds, shakes the metal grate beneath her.

                “No,” she says. “ _Bruce_. This isn’t what you are. You’ve gone years without an incident. Don’t do this. You have to fight.”

                Bruce makes a terrible noise, something like a scream. Natasha focuses hard on his face, tries to ignore the flashes she gets of other faces, from years and years ago.

                “You’ll be fine,” she says. “We’ll be okay. I will get you out of here. I promise. I will get you out--”

                “ _Out of here_?” Bruce’s voice is too deep for his body, thunders and crashes, shakes the bones in her chest. “ _I’m here_ _because of you_.”

                He shifts, ripping apart in front of her, building into something else. He’s _huge_. She knows exactly how big the Hulk is. She read the file. She always knew what she was dealing with.

                She was young, once, and small. She grew older and bigger, armored herself in skill, anchored herself to a team, and she hasn’t run from anything in a very long time.

                When the Hulk stands in front of her and roars, the pipes rattle with the force of it. They shift just enough to set her free, and she runs.

 

 

 

                Jason goes still when he hears the Hulk roar. “Coulson,” he says.

                Coulson’s jaw tightens, and he does not look back. “If Natasha needed help, she would ask for it.”

                He’s right. To a point.

                Natasha would request assistance as long as she prioritized her survival over whatever other goal she was trying to accomplish. Nat’s not usually the one Jason has to worry about. God knows Tony is ready to hand his life over for a handshake from someone paternal, and Clint would lay down on train tracks to save a stray dog, but Nat’s got a sturdy practicality to her that means she understands she can save more lives by being alive than she can by being dead.

                The trick with this team has always been making sure nobody gets so excited about saving someone else that they end up getting themselves killed.

                Coulson told him once that teams follow the habits of their captains. They’d been talking about soccer, but Coulson likes to deliver his life lessons with metaphors sometimes. Probably because it makes it harder for Jason to justify inviting him to fuck off.

                Jason isn’t anybody’s captain, but he can see how, if you made a map of the team, he might be at the heart of it.

                And Jason would die for any one of those idiots. They’re _his_ idiots. They’re his family. And it took him a long damn time to find a family that does him any good, so he takes it a little personally whenever someone puts them in danger.

                “Loki’s not going to get to me.” It’s a promise Jason can’t keep. He doesn’t make those unless he’s desperate. He isn’t Bruce Wayne. “Just let me go get her. And then I’ll go wherever. High security cells, sure. Lock me up. I just gotta--”

                “Jason,” Coulson says. “You need to respect your team.”

                It’s not that Jason doesn’t respect them. It’s not that he doesn’t know how strong they are, how clever and brave and skilled. But none of that saved Jason when he died. And he doesn’t want to go to any funerals.

                “Coulson,” Jason says. He stops walking. “Come on. Let me do this.”

                Coulson stops. He looks at Jason for a long moment and then reaches out, puts a hand around his shoulder. “Jason,” he says, “that team would follow your anywhere. Understand? If Loki gets you, the others will come after you. He gets you, and then he gets everyone else. Let me make sure you’re safe.”

                It goes against every instinct he has. Jason looks after his team by putting himself in front of them. He takes hits so they don’t. That’s how this works. That’s how it’s always worked.

                “I’ve got you,” Coulson says, “and I’ve got the team. Let me do my job.”

                If there’s anyone alive that Jason trusts with this team, it’s Coulson. Phil Coulson has never once let them down, let them die, let them suffer anything at all when he could stop it. He’s smart, and he’s loyal, and, if Coulson can’t bring them back alive, then survival was never an option.

                “Look after them,” Jason says. He knows he will, but he can’t hold it back.

                Coulson nods. “I will.”

                The longer Jason delays, the longer Natasha has to square off against the Hulk alone. It’s selfish, what he’s doing. It’s a coward’s play.

                He takes a breath, makes himself start moving.

                 

 

 

                Engine Three is on fire, and part of the ship is just _missing_. The maintenance hallway opens out to the sky. Bucky has to fight the urge to grab onto Steve, make sure he doesn’t tip right off the edge.

                They’re assessing the situation for a minute, maybe less, when the Iron Man suit flies up, hovers overhead as it scans the gutted machinery.

                The suit drops closer to the engine. “We need to get the super conducting cooling system back online before I can get the debris out of the rotors,” Tony says, through the comms. “Check the engine panel. Let me know which relays are in overload position.”

                “Shouldn’t Stark be here for this?” Steve yells to Bucky, over the rush of the wind. “Or is he busy making money?”

                “Shut the hell up, Stevie,” Bucky says, because Tony’s in a metal suit, flirting with getting himself murdered twelve separate ways at once, and he’s feeling a bit tense about it. “You think that suit’s easy to fly?”

                “I heard it’s mostly self-directed.” They fight their way to the engine panel, and Bucky does his best not to smack him for being a jerk or grab hold of him to make sure he’s safe.

                “It’s really, really not,” Bucky says. He squints at the engine panel and reflects on what’s going to happen when that cooling system comes back to life.

                “Hey, Iron Man,” he says, cupping a hand over the comm to cut some of the wind-related feedback. “How the hell are you planning to jump this thing?” Because he knows damn well that clearing the rotors and patching the cooling system isn’t going to be enough to restart the engine.

                “Just a little push.” There’s not even a hint of irony in Tony’s tone. “Like that time in Barcelona.”

                “Yeah,” Bucky says, as he goes to work, “that time in Barcelona wasn’t thousands of feet in the air. And the suit wasn’t _inside the engine_ when we did it.”

                “Don’t be such a worrywart,” Tony says. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

                Bucky lost his sense of adventure when his feet hit the sand on a beach in France. But he doesn’t see any reason to bring that up now.

                “If I get into trouble,” Tony says, conciliatory, “just pull that big red lever. Should give me enough time to get the suit free.”

                Bucky eyes the lever to the side of the engine panel. It’s a hell of a thing to trust Tony’s life to. This ship isn’t even Tony’s design.

                “I don’t like it,” he says. Beside him, Steve’s suddenly focused, eyes narrowed, head tilted like he’s found a threat.

                “The suit can’t carry the helicarrier, Buck. This is the best plan we’ve got. Just make sure you can get to the lever.”

                Bucky follows Steve’s stare, finds the men in SHIELD uniforms at the end of it. They’re SHIELD personnel, or they used to be. But their eyes are a bright, unnatural blue.

                Loki’s sent their own people against them.

                “Okay,” Bucky says, as he finishes his work and steps away from the engine panel. “We’ll keep the route clear.”

 

 

 

                She keeps running, away from weak points, away from personnel. Away from the engines. She feels like a rabbit leading a wolf from her warren. It’s a dissonant kind of courage. The last time she felt fear like this, she had no one else to protect.

                The fear eats less of her now, like it can’t quite get its teeth around the whole of who she is, can’t pull her loose when she’s threaded so deeply into the others.

                She stays focused, plans her route. She buys time, but there isn’t an infinite supply. The countdown started when Banner lost control. She can put more time on the clock, but she can’t change that it’s ticking down.

                The Hulk can leap thirty feet without effort. She stays ahead of him by using his size against him, staying low, turning tight corners that keep him from reaching full speed.

                It works until it doesn’t, and his reaching hand smacks her across a room, into a metal wall that doesn’t give. She slumps to the floor, stunned, and there’s a flash of red in her peripheral vision.

                _Red_ used to mean danger. There’s still an echo of it, a lingering aftertaste of _Red Room_ , copper and ice in the back of her throat.

                But _red_ also means Jason, dressed for combat, or Tony, suited up. Red means Robin, dropping in to see Clint. Red means the rings around Captain America’s shield.

                But this red is too dull to be Iron Man, too dark to be Rogers’ shield. It’s the wrong shade for Gotham, doesn’t fit Jason’s mask or Robin’s suit.

                The Hulk is roaring, closing in, trying to grab her through the collapsed metal grating. The flash of red resolves into the red patches on Thor’s shoulders, a nod to that cape he’s only recently set aside.

                She’s been running _away_ from people, away from SHEILD agents, away from her team.

                But Thor is difficult to kill. If anyone on this ship is prepared to fight the Hulk, it’s Thor. And Thor isn’t on her team.

                _Acceptable loss,_ she thinks, and she doesn’t feel sorry for it.

                She scrambles to her feet, ducks sparks as the Hulk rips frames away from the walls. She lunges onto another catwalk and sprints, knowing she doesn’t have enough cover. She hears a crash behind her, feels heat as the sparks catch something flammable.

                Below her, ten yards away, Thor turns to look as she runs right for him.

                When she dives from the catwalk, she can’t check her momentum, sails toward the floor with too much speed for a graceful landing. Thor catches her around the waist, swings her around, sets her on her feet.

                “Alright?” he asks, head already swinging the Hulk’s direction, hammer humming as he spins it in a neat, vicious circle.

                “Tag,” Natasha says, winded, bloody. “Your turn.”

                She slips away, holes up somewhere small, listens to the crash of metal and the roar of the Hulk. She curls her legs to her chest, checks her knives, checks her gun, tries to calm the rabbit-scramble of her heart.

                _Barton_ , she thinks, fingers reaching to touch the small zippered pocket low on the side of her STRIKE suit, where the first paper bird he ever made her is tucked, safe and whole.

                She’s going to catch her breath. She’s going to swallow the panic and patch her injuries. And then, when she’s ready, she’ll find him.

 

 

 

                They’re down on the lower levels, headed for the high security cells, when Fury calls Coulson away. “Agent Couslon,” he says, “I need you armed up for this. Get to the armory.”

                Couslon looks to Jason before he goes, mouth skewing up in apology, but Jason shrugs him off, accepts it, moves on.

                He means to go to the cells. He does. It’s the plan. Those are his orders, and he can see the rationality of them, the necessity.

                He gets a little distracted on the way, helping the agents and support staff who need it. Jason’s not a medic, but he’s learned a fair amount through sheer necessity, and the knock the helicarrier took earlier launched plenty of people right into sharp edges and steep drops.

                He’s passing a heavily limping woman along to a member of Medical staff when the helicarrier lurches suddenly, a sickening drop that barely seems to correct, and Jason finds himself slammed hard into a wall for the second time, but there’s no Bucky around to take the worst of the hit.

                “Engine One is down.” Fury’s voice is loud over the comms. He’s shouting. “Barton’s here, headed for the detention lab. Who’s still alive to deal with this shit?”

                _Barton’s here_ , Jason thinks. He looks up, toward the detention lab, toward Loki.

                “Engine Three is almost online,” Tony says. His voice is quiet, soft and distracted, focused on something else. There’s a layer of tension under the concentration, sounds like something’s gone wrong. “Kind of a touchy spot. Can’t really hit pause on this one.”

                A second later, Bucky reports in: “Can’t leave position.” In the split second of audio feed that follows, Jason hears the stuttering crack of gunfire.

                “I copy,” Natasha says. She sounds distant. Faint, in a way she never gets. Jason’s mind conjures up an image of her, belly-down on a catwalk, dripping blood from some fatal wound. He sees her shoving herself up, going back to the fight. “I’ll get Barton.”

                “Headed to the detention lab,” Coulson reports, a second later.

                His whole team – his _whole team_ – sounds like they’re fighting for their lives. Coulson’s walking into fire, and Jason’s walking into a padded cell. Tony, Bucky, and Nat sound like they’ve already taken hits that should’ve landed them two weeks of medical leave, and Barton’s so thoroughly fucked that he doesn’t even know who his team is anymore.

                Jason looks up the hall, toward the cells. He makes himself look.

                _And what happens_ , he hears in Steve Rogers’ voice, _when you fail?_

                “Fuck this,” he says.

                His team doesn’t fail. His team doesn’t lose.

                His team is fighting without him, losing without him. And he doesn’t care what Loki has planned for him. He doesn’t care what bullshit schemes the trickster god dreamed up. Jason’s not going to be too late to save them. He’s not letting any of them die alone.


	9. Chapter 9

                Bucky is not generally in the business of murdering his own allies. But the shots the SHIELD agents are taking at him is making it increasingly difficult to avoid putting them down.

                “Did you train these guys?” Steve asks, huddled behind the scrap of cover they’ve found. “They shoot like you.”

                Bucky shrugs. It’s entirely possible. He’s trying not to identify them, because it’ll make it easier to kill them if he doesn’t know their names. “Nat and I,” he says, without much explanation. “At this distance, we have a similar shooting pattern.”

                “Huh,” Steve says. He takes a breath and then lunges to his feet, cocks his arm back to throw the shield. It’s just slipping out of his fingertips when the whole helicarrier lurches, tipping hard and barely righting, and, in that moment of slanted freefall, Steve slams into the waist-high metal barrier, overbalances, and tips over.

                “ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says, jumping to his feet, forgetting about cover, forgetting about everything that isn’t Steve Rogers, flying backwards toward the open sky.

                “Engine One is down,” Fury says, into the comm. “Barton’s here, headed for the detention lab. Who’s still alive to deal with this shit?”

                Bucky grabs the shield out of the air as it comes winging back, uses it to block the gunshots that come his way.

                “Engine Three is almost online,” Tony reports. Bucky can hear a grating noise, metal grinding against metal. “Kind of a touchy spot,” Tony says. “Can’t really hit pause on this one.”

                Where Steve should be, there’s nothing but sky. Bucky freezes in place.

                “I’m here,” Steve’s voice carries up. “Buck,” he yells, “I’m down here.”

                Bucky breathes out. “Can’t leave position,” he reports, and then moves forward, center of gravity low, shield braced, trying to get to Steve without getting himself shot or knocked off the ship in the process.

                “Hey, Buck,” Tony says, into his ear. “Pull that lever for me.”

                Bucky glances back over his shoulder, toward the red lever. “Tony,” he says, “I’ve gotta--”

                “Now, please,” Tony says, voice bending a little high, sounding strained. “Now would be--- shit.”

                There’s an awful car-crash sound behind him, and, down below, Bucky hears Steve yelling his name.

                Bucky weighs his choice. He looks down, sees Steve reaching for him one-handed, hanging from a cable that could snap at any second. Time smears, shifts in his head, and he feels train tracks beneath his feet, gets the stinging bite of cold, the swooping panic of falling.

                If Steve falls, he’s dead. But if Steve falls, Tony can catch him. Unless Tony’s shredded to death by the engine he risked his life to get back online.

                Bucky turns, sprints for the lever, throws the shield at the best marksman and hopes it’ll be enough to get him there. He grabs the lever and pulls, throws his whole weight against it, and then he’s flat on his back, watching as Iron Man rises up, carrying Steve, and takes out the SHIELD agents with what Bucky hopes are non-lethal rounds.

                “Jesus,” Tony says, crashing to ground next to Bucky. “That was fun, huh? We’re having fun?”

                “Yeah,” Bucky says, pushing himself up on his elbows, wondering how long it’s going to take to get the image of Steve – hanging over an endless drop, reaching for him, yelling his name – out of his head.

                When he looks Steve’s way, he finds him staring back, head tilted, eyes unreadable.

                _Shit_ , Bucky thinks. This is why they should’ve told Steve that Tony was in the suit. This is exactly why Steve needs to know, so he doesn’t get it into his head that Bucky left him hanging off the side of a helicarrier just so he can save his boyfriend’s robot.

                “Steve,” he says. “It’s just--”

                “No,” Steve says. “I get it. The suit can fly. That was the right call.”

                “Yeah,” Bucky says. “That’s not why--”

                “I _get_ it, Buck.” Steve turns his back on him, goes to fetch the shield that’s lodged into what was probably a really important piece of circuitry at some point. “You don’t have to explain it. Strategically, it was the best move you could’ve made.”

                “Oh, shit,” Tony says. “ _Strategically_.”

                Steve gives the Iron Man suit a look and then he spins the shield in his hands, adjusts his grip, settles his stance. “Sounded like the others needed our help,” he observes, so damn bland that it’s like they’re back in Brooklyn, and Steve’s about five seconds away from starting a fight over something everyone in their right mind would just let slide.

                “Right,” Tony says. He works his way to his feet and then reaches down, grabs Bucky by the tac vest, and hauls him up, too. “Let’s go be heroes.”

 

 

 

                Natasha is still catching her breath, trying to gauge if the dull ache in her ankle is going to blossom into something debilitating, when she feels the ship shudder underneath her. Seconds later, Fury’s in her ear.

                “Engine One is down,” he says. “Barton’s here, headed for the detention lab. Who’s still alive to deal with this shit?”

                Natasha listens to Tony’s response, and then Bucky’s, and she thinks about Clint Barton, about the first time she saw him up close, sitting next to her hospital bed with a tired smile on his face, handing her Pop Tarts and paper birds.

                She thinks about him sleeping outside her door at SHIELD for those first weeks. She thinks of all the times they’ve woken up next to each other, relaxed, rumpled, safe. Clint Barton is the first person who let her be something vulnerable, set his shoulder against the world and pushed back until she had enough space to breath out, drop her guard, settle into something soft.

                The world made her into a weapon, and Clint let her be something else. Now Loki’s made Clint a weapon, and Natasha owes a debt.

                “I copy,” she says, getting her legs underneath her, forcing herself up. “I’ll get Barton.”

 

 

 

                Jason rounds the corner toward the detention lab, and he sees Loki stepping out of his cage.

                “Oh, fuck you, asshole,” he says, and picks up speed, throws himself right at him, god or not.

                There’s a second of confusion, and then Jason’s through him, falling through a projection and straight into the cage, and he thinks _Oh, Goddamn this trickster bullshit_.

                He lunges up, tries for the door, but it slides shut before he can reach it, and now he’s in the cage, looking out, and Loki’s staring at him from the other side.

                “Hm,” Loki says, a small smile pulling his mouth into a crooked line. “Interesting. You aren’t the prey I set this trap for.”

                “My mistake,” Jason says, running his fingers along the line of the door, seeking a way out that he knows doesn’t exist. “Why don’t you pop this thing open, and we’ll get that fixed?”

                Loki’s smile simmers wider, and he steps up close, peering in at Jason like he’s an animal in a zoo. “I can smell the grave dirt on you,” he says, soft, eyes tracing down Jason’s face.

                Jason rolls his eyes. “Yeah? I smell bullshit on you.”

                Loki laughs. It’s an ugly thing, not high and wild like the Joker, but they share the same jackal’s grin. “All that rage,” he says, like it’s something cute, like Jason’s a puppy fumbling over his paws. “I can feel it from here, the sickness in you. That Pit they put you in, you never did come back out, did you?”

                “Is this what we’re gonna do?” Jason asks. “We’re gonna sit here, and you’re gonna spew crazy at me, and then I’m—what? Gonna cry about it?”

                “Clint tells me you’re playing hero these days.” Loki says his name like it’s nothing. _Clint_ , he says, like he has any right to it, and Jason damn near throws a punch against the glass. “Does that make you feel better about what you do? You, and the Widow, and your sad Soldier. Do you think you can wash away blood with more blood?”

                Jason sets his jaw and steps deliberately away from the glass. It’s a two-step system, hard to override without permissions he’s reasonably certain Clint doesn’t have. Loki can’t drop him unless the cage registers an escape attempt first. So long as he can keep his hands to himself, he’s reasonably safe.

                Which, given the history of his tolerance to rage, means he’s more or less already fucked.

                Loki smiles at him. “A tamed monster,” he says, “is still a monster.”

                “You wanna see a monster?” Jason nods his head toward the door between them. “Open this fucking door. I’ll show you a monster.”

                “Oh,” Loki says, stepping away. “I’ll set you loose soon enough.”

                He moves to stand over the console that will drop Jason out of the sky, if the cage’s safety system is triggered. Jason wonders if this asshole honestly thinks he’s going to beg.

                “Fuck you,” he says, because he didn’t beg the Joker for his life when he was fifteen, and he’s sure as hell not going to ask this alien for anything.

                Loki tips his head. “Do you think someone will save you? Do you think you’ve earned that this time?”

                Jason swallows. He hears the Joker’s laughter in his head. He hears himself, screaming. It isn’t real. It happened years ago, a lifetime ago. None of that can hurt him now.

                “Fuck you,” he says, again.

                “Tell me, what do you think is to happen to your team? What’s going to happen when they pick the mess of you out of this cage they built?”

                “ _Fuck you_ ,” Jason says, one more time.

                “That’s the story of you, Jason,” Loki says. “That’s what you _do_. You bring people to you, and then you break them apart. You played at being Robin, but you were born an albatross.”

                Jason spent years and years of his life thinking of himself as something toxic. He doesn’t need this jackass standing here, throwing old fears in his face.

                “You better push that fucking button,” he says, “before I find a way out of here and kick your ass all the way back to Asgard.”

                “Yes,” Loki says, with another smile. “The Joker said you would die well.”

                Jason goes still. He wonders just when the fuck Loki talked to the Joker, and what they hell they talked about.

                “I was going to have Clint do it,” Loki tells him. “I thought it might cause a rift between your teams. But Clint was right, I think. Better to send the Joker after Tim Drake. There’s a symmetry to it. I asked him to bring a tire iron.”

                It hits like a slap, like a bullet, like a tire iron to the throat.

                He hears Tim Drake saying, _We can’t help you. Something’s gone wrong here._

                For a second, Jason can’t breathe. And then he yells, can’t help it, can’t hold it back. He slams his fist against the glass, and he hears the low, echoing crack of the cage shuddering free from the supports that hold it.

                Loki laughs, sharp, triumphant, and there it is, buried under all that Asgardian decorum, the same lunatic hyena laugh.

 

 

 

                Natasha finds Barton on one of the catwalks, headed toward the detention lab, bow in hand. She drops onto his back, and then they’re fighting. She assumes that it’ll be rough; she plans to get hurt. But she realizes very quickly that Barton has never, ever thrown a punch at her with his full strength behind it.

                Years and years she’s known him, and he’s pulled every single punch.

                He uses her own tricks against her. She feels like she’s fighting Bucky, and Tony, and Jason, and herself. He slams her against a metal railing, digs an elbow right into the ribs she broke six months back.

                She can’t breathe.

                She shoves him back, rolls away, flips over the railing and falls to the next level down. He comes after her, and she swings around, leverages her flexibility, her smaller size.

                She dodges one knife, bashes his wrist into metal until he drops another. When he slashes at her face, she drops to the ground and then dives up, slams her shoulder into his stomach and knocks him back.

                They aren’t evenly matched. She’s better. If he were an enemy, he’d be dead by now.

                But he’s good enough that she can’t disarm him, and he’s not playing, not checking himself. He’s tried to kill her a dozen times over.

                “Come on, Barton,” she says, as she leaps for another railing, makes him work to catch her. “Come back.”

                “Natasha,” he says, voice the wrong pitch, eyes the wrong shade. “Nat,” he begs, with a tone he’s never used. “Help me.”

                She’s going to feed Loki his own heart. She’s going to butcher him. She’s going to rip him apart.

                “Barton,” she says.

                “Nat,” he counters, finally hitting a pitch she recognizes, sounds the way he’d sounded in Afghanistan, when Coulson was captured, and Clint gave himself up immediately. He sounds panicked, and young, and brave despite it.

                She hesitates for a second, thrown, and there’s a look of cold victory on his face, and the knife she didn’t realize he was drawing is flipping end-over-end toward her throat.

 

 

 

                When Loki stops laughing, he flips up the plastic shield that covers the drop button. He’s still smiling when he reaches for it, and Jason doesn’t want this, doesn’t want another death that’s just a way to hurt the people who’ve made the mistake of caring about him.

                “Fuck you,” he says, because it’s what he has, it’s all he has in his head other than the Joker’s laugh and the sound of a tire iron cracking bones. “ _Fuck_ you. Let me out. Fight me, you piece of shit, you fucking coward.”

                Loki opens his mouth to speak and then stops, goes still and stares.

                “Move away, please,” Coulson says. He’s calm, composed, unfailingly polite. If Jason didn’t know him, he wouldn’t be able to read the anger in the perfect enunciation of those syllables, the slight hint of teeth in the neat breaks between words.

                He’s holding some strange gun, and it’s leveled right at Loki’s chest. He never looks Jason’s direction, but the relief Jason feels is immediate and relentless, gratitude chasing worry in the pit of his stomach.

                “Interesting weapon,” Coulson says, as Loki steps warily away from the console, hands held up in surrender. “We developed it after you sent the Destroyer. I’m not entirely clear on what it does. Would you like to find out?”

                Loki flickers, and Jason sees it, the shadow forming behind Coulson, the spear, the shift of motion, the threat Coulson can’t counter. Jason’s hands curl tight into useless fists, and he screams so loud that he almost misses the sound, the clash of metal as a batarang knocks into the spear, turns the stab meant to impale Coulson into a slash that opens up his back.

 

 

 

                The knife that should’ve slit her throat ricochets harmlessly off a gauntlet, and Robin lands in front of her, knocks Clint back with a solid front kick to the chest.

                “Hey, Widow,” Robin says, without looking over his shoulder.

                “Hey, Robin,” Natasha returns, letting out a breath. “You Bats always have to make such a dramatic entrance?”

                “Well,” Tim says, as he hops onto the railing, moves to flank Clint, who’s glancing nervously between the two of them, “we’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

                Natasha goes right, and Tim goes left. Against one of them, Barton would have a chance, but, against both of them, he’s hopelessly outclassed.

                He runs, and they chase, and Natasha makes Tim bring him down, but she’s the one who gets her hands around Clint’s head, slams his skull back against the ground, knocks him out in one clean, solid hit.

                Clint goes limp, and the unfamiliar lines of tension ease from his face, and she’s looking at her friend again.

                “Thanks,” Tim says. His hands move carefully across Clint’s face, through his hair, reaching to curl protectively around what Natasha’s sure is going to be a hell of a bruise in a few minutes. “I didn’t want to do that.”

                Natasha didn’t want to do it either.

                But this is what friends do for each other. This is the price for all those birds, all those shared snacks, for every easy morning spent curled against Clint, feigning sleep until he stirs, goes to fetch coffee. This is only part of what she would give up for him, just one entry on an endless list of sacrifices she would make.

                She breathes out. She hears Clint begging. _Natasha. Nat. Help me._

                “What are you doing here?” she asks, to drive the ghosts out of her head. “Jason said there were troubles in Gotham.”

                “There were,” Tim says. There’s a weight to him, suddenly. He sighs, shakes it away. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s handled. We thought you might need help.”

                Natasha blinks. She tips her head Tim’s direction, tries to read what she can see of his face. “‘We?’” she asks.

 

 

 

                Jason’s still screaming when Batman drops from the ceiling and slams straight into Loki, sends him sprawling with the force of it.

                “Oh,” Loki say, as he rolls to his feet, grinning like this is a surprise party, a _joke_. “The Bat. Well, this is unexpected.”

                Coulson slumps to the ground, and Bruce steps in front of him. He’s holding that knife Jason gave him. There’s a look on his face that Jason’s never seen before, some kind of grim, hateful focus, a rage that seems almost unholy.

                “Fucking kill him,” Jason yells. “For once in your fucking life, just _kill him_.”

                Loki’s starting to look a little less amused by this turn of events. “What,” he says, lowering the scepter to point at the knife, “is _that_?”

                Some of Phil Coulson’s blood drips off the scepter, splatters across the metal walkway, and Jason’s rage is a howling thing inside him.

                “Let me out,” he says. “Let me out, give me the knife, and I’ll fucking fillet him. Br-- _Batman_. Let me out!”

                “The Bat doesn’t kill,” Loki says, like he’s quoting scripture from a religion he finds quaint, almost charming.

                “It didn’t kill Superman when I used it on him,” Bruce says. “I have no reason to think it’ll kill you.”

                Loki tenses. The laughter is gone. There’s assessment in his eyes.

                Behind them, Coulson’s blood is spreading across the floor, and Coulson’s eyes are going glassy.

                “Let me the fuck _out_ of here.” Jason can’t look away from the blood, the bright red on Coulson’s white Oxford, the way Coulson’s hands are falling limp and open, beseeching, helpless. “He’s _dying_.”

                Loki darts for the button that’ll drop Jason from the sky, and Bruce moves fast, throws the knife. It clatters harmlessly off the console, because Loki’s leaving, flinching back and heading for the exit.

                For a second, Jason thinks Bruce is going to go after him, but he moves only as far as the console, stares down at the assortment of buttons and switches, and then taps a combination of keys that has the cage’s door sliding open.

                Jason’s free, and Loki’s close, and he could grab that knife and go after him, could cut him open like he cut Phil open, could stab and cut and rend, but he’s crouched over Coulson almost before he knows he’s made the call. He presses his hands over the gaping cut in Coulson’s side, tries to hold his skin together, tries to push hard enough to keep the blood inside.

                “Hey,” Coulson says, fuzzy, faint.

                “I’m sorry,” Jason says. He doesn’t know what else to say. If he hadn’t been Robin, his mother wouldn’t be dead, and, if he hadn’t been Red Hood, Coulson wouldn’t be dying, and he doesn’t know how the hell he keeps doing this, how he keeps getting people killed. “Coulson,” he says, “ _shit_. Coulson, I’m sorry.”

                “It’s alright,” Coulson says. “Jason, it’s not your fault.”

                “Don’t,” Jason says. His hand curls around Phil’s ribs, pressing down hard as the blood slips between his fingers. “ _Don’t_ ,” Jason repeats. “Don’t you fucking do it. Stay right here. Stay with me.”

                Coulson breathes out. More blood surges up below Jason’s hands, pouring out of him.

                Coulson’s never really been human. Not in Jason’s mind. Never before.

                Jason’s never thought about how, out of all of them, Coulson’s the most fragile.

                “Goddamn it,” Jason says, snarling in the face of all these revelations he doesn’t want, the goodbyes he never thought to practice. “Don’t you fucking leave me. Just fucking--- just _stay here_.”

                Coulson’s jaw works. He tips his head back against the wall behind him. When he looks at Jason, there’s an apology written all over his face, etched in the blood that’s filling up between his teeth.

                “No.” Jason shakes his head. “ _Fuck_ you, Phil. No one gave you clearance to die. Don’t you fucking do it.”

                “Jason.” It’s Bruce’s voice. A second later, Bruce is right there, right beside him, crouching next to him as he reaches into the med kit on his belt.

                “Bruce,” Jason says. The last time he said Bruce’s name like that was years ago, a lifetime ago. “You’ve gotta—Bruce, help. Bruce, please, I can’t--”

                “It’s alright,” Bruce says, soothing him like he’s some panicked kid, some civilian who’s never faced a casualty before. “Get help. I’ll do what I can.”

                There’s a long, terrible moment where Jason knows he has to take his hands off Phil but thinks, the second he does, Phil’s going to fade away from him. “Bruce,” he says.

                He knows what he has to do, but he can’t. He can’t do it.

                “Jason,” Coulson says. “Get Medical.”

                Jason swallows. He steps back. When he presses his thumb to the comm to send an emergency call, to disrupt the chatter on every in-range channel, he feels Coulson’s blood dripping down from his fingers, to his wrist, to his elbow.

                “Medical to the detention lab,” he says. His voice sounds high in his own ears; it sounds like he can’t breathe. “Agent down.” He pauses, feels the silence building up from his stomach to his eyelids.

                “Medical to detention lab,” he repeats. “It’s Coulson.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh. So listen. I've been keeping a secret since "Your Way Up to the Light," and now it's time to unburden myself of this subterfuge. 
> 
> There's been a secret background relationship in this verse. It's been so far in the background that tagging for it felt like false advertising. And I don't really want to tag for it now for the same reason, but also because it would kind of change the impact of the discovery.
> 
> But, for anyone who's not interested in any surprises, I'm gonna put the ship in the end notes, so you can dodge down there first, if you'd like.

                Jason pieces himself back together half an hour later, in an empty exam room in the Medical wing.

                Natasha’s perched on the exam table, legs crossed neatly at the ankle, face statue-blank and posture ballerina-perfect. Tony’s standing with his back against the door, hands tucked into his armpits so he won’t itch at the line of butterfly bandages holding the gash on his cheek together. Steve is outside, allegedly guarding the door, and Jason was too out of it when his team hustled him in here to get an accurate read on what that tense, unhappy look on Steve’s face was supposed to mean.

                Coulson is still in surgery.

                Clint’s still unconscious. According to Natasha, they’d handcuffed him to his hospital bed.

                Jason should be in one room or the other, but he’s in here, trying to get his shit sorted out, get his feet back underneath him.

                He’s sitting on the counter, head tipped back against the wall, and Bucky’s washing the blood off his throat with a rag already red from the mess that had covered Jason from fingertip to elbow.

                “Medical’s brought us back from worse than this.” Natasha voice is smooth and controlled. Jason’s envious of her breathing pattern; he can’t quite seem to match it.

                “Yeah,” Jason says, “ _us_. They’ve brought _us_ back from worse than this.”

                Coulson’s not a lab experiment. Coulson’s never had any kind of magic on him. Coulson has high blood pressure, and the beginnings of crow’s feet, and a gaping slash in his back that may have cut into his spine.

                “He’s not dead yet,” Natasha says. The eerie calm to her, the eye-of-the-storm stillness, is the only reason Jason can stop himself from throwing every single medical instrument in the room right at her face. He knows repression when he sees it.

                “Jesus,” Tony says. He clears his throat, rubs a hand down his face and grimaces when he tugs at the cut. “Fuck’s sake, Nat. Don’t say shit like that.”

                “It’s better to be prepared,” she tells him. There’s a hint of bite in her voice, that defensive threat that manifests when she’s scared and trying not to be. Natasha shows fear the same way a snake does. “If he dies, we need to have a plan.”

                “We have a plan,” Jason says. He closes his eyes. Bucky’s being unnecessarily gentle with the rag, touch soft and almost hesitant as he clears Coulson’s blood off Jason’s skin.

                Maybe it’s not unnecessary. Jason spent the whole walk here feeling like a flashbomb of rage was detonating behind his eyes. There’s a reason no one touched him until Bucky made it to the detention lab.

                He breathes in. He tells himself that the coppery taste in his mouth is just his brain, making shit up, trying to match how he feels to where he is.

                “And what,” Natasha says, “is the plan?”

                “The plan is what it always is,” Jason says. “The plan is to murder the fuck out of the problem.”

                The plan is to finish the mission. The plan is to spill enough of Loki’s blood to compensate for the mess they’d left in the detention lab, to tip the balance back to fair. The plan is to open Loki up and bleed him dry, hope that’s enough. Hope the universe gets all the blood it needs, and they get to keep Coulson after all.

                Loki gave the Joker Tim Drake’s _name_. Loki sent the Joker after Tim with a tire iron and then stabbed Coulson in the back.

                Jason doesn’t care who his father is or isn’t. He doesn’t care if it’s an act of war. He’s going to rip into Loki until there’s so much blood on him that Bucky and an army of rags couldn’t make him clean again.

                “Oh, good,” Tony says. “I’ve always loved that plan.”

                “The Asgardians might object,” Bucky says. It’s a warning, not an argument. When Jason opens his eyes, he sees Bucky staring back, steady as sunrise, ready for whatever bloodiness Jason leads him to.

                “Fuck the Asgardians,” Jason says. He leans forward, lets his head rest on Bucky’s shoulder.

                If Coulson dies because of some Asgardian bullshit, he’s going to burn the whole Goddamn planet. And he doesn’t care if there are innocents on that planet, because there are dead innocents on this one, and the Asgardians did nothing to protect them.

                If Jason has learned anything from Bruce Wayne, it’s that sometimes you have to answer for what you didn’t prevent.

                Bucky runs a hand through Jason’s hair. He’s warm, even through all that body armor. He smells like sweat and gunpowder and smoke. It’s weird, really, how much the aftereffects of violence can smell like home.

                “I watched him do it,” Jason says, soft. It’s just for Bucky. “I watched him stab Coulson in the back.”

                Bucky’s quiet for a moment and then nods. His hand tightens briefly in Jason’s hair. “Fuck the Asgardians,” he says. And it’s a little tired, a little hollow, but there’s a ring of finality anyway.

                The blood is gone, and his breathing’s evened out, and his team needs him, so it’s time to stop hiding.

                _Break’s over_ , Jason thinks, as he slides off the counter, lets his boots hit the ground with an echoing thump. _Back to work._

               

 

 

                _Status report_ , Natasha thinks, hand hovering over the doorknob. _Weapons check._

                She pushes the door open and steps inside. Tim Drake is sitting next to the hospital bed. He has his mask on and one hand curled up with Clint’s. It’s impossible to tell which one of them picked the handcuffs, but Natasha is reasonably certain it was Tim. The guilt on Clint’s face suggests he would’ve accepted whatever restrains anyone thought to give him.

                His eyes are back to their proper shade, but he’s pale, washed-out and bloodless in the unforgiving brightness of the fluorescents. He looks tired. He looks like he’s been very ill for a very long time.

                _Nat_ , Jason said, minutes ago, _get a read on Barton. I wanna know how many snipers we have._

                She wants to send Clint home. She wants to go with him. She wants to fetch Clint’s dog from the neighbor, and she wants to put Clint on the couch, dog beside him, and feed him coffee and pizza until he smiles again. She wants to chase the ghosts out of his eyes.

                But that’s not why she’s here.

                “Hello, Dr. Jekyll,” she greets. “Glad you have to back.”

                “Not funny, Nat,” Clint says, but his mouth tips up at the edges anyway. He takes a breath, and it only catches a little in the back of his throat. “I’m sorry for--”

                “Don’t offer me an apology that you don’t owe.” Her tone is sharper than she means it to be. It’s possible that she’s more brittle than she anticipated. She feels like splintering glass, an ounce of pressure away from shattering outward. “You did nothing to me.”

                Clint stares hard at the bruises on her arms, the clean and unmarked span of her throat. “I tried to kill you,” he says.

                He’s holding so tightly to Drake’s hand that the tendons of his forearm are arching against the skin. A grip like that, she thinks, probably hurts. But there’s nothing on Drake’s face except a gentle, grim kind of concern.

                They are steady, the both of them. Anchors. But they are young, and good, and neither one of them has ever been dragged so far out to sea.

                Clint has always been something of a lighthouse for her. And if it’s her turn to draw him home, then she’s happy to do it. She would burn better things than herself if it meant she could light his way home.

                Natasha settles into the chair on Clint’s other side, and she winds her fingers through Clint’s free hand.

                “You are Clint Barton,” she tells him, as simply as she can. “And you have never tried to hurt me in your whole life.”

                “I did,” he says. His hand moves restlessly under hers, like he thinks he should pull away but can’t make himself do it. “I threw a knife at your _throat_ , Nat. I--”

                “You are Clint Barton,” she reminds him. Her hand tightens around his. “And you have never tried to hurt me in your whole life.”

                He closes his eyes, takes a breath. He shakes, just a little. His jaw clenches shut like he’s biting back something awful, like he’s swallowing poison.

                “How many agents?” he asks, when he blinks his eyes open. “Nat,” he says, when he doesn’t answer, “how many agents?”

                “Don’t do this to yourself,” she says. “None of that was you.”

                “But I did it,” he says. “I was in there, and I did it. My hands, my bow, my-- I _told him_. I told him how to do it, how to hurt you. I told him _everything_.”

                “You can talk to Bucky,” she says, “about hurting people with hands you can’t control. When I hurt innocent people, I chose to do it. I did as I was told.”

                “It’s not the same,” Clint says. “You were a child. You didn’t--”

                “I had more agency than you did.”

                As far back as she can remember, Natasha has never been the kind of innocent that Clint is. She’s never had his sweetness. She has known, always, that he was carrying a debt that would be called in. She protected him for as long as she could.

                In a kinder world, that debt never would’ve come due at all.

                “How many agents, Nat?” Clint repeats. His eyes are closed again. His knuckles are white next to Tim’s, but the hand she’s holding is almost limp. “I need to know. Just _tell_ me.”

                Natasha doesn’t know the final count. They will probably never know the final count. Clint wasn’t the only agent Loki stole; he was just the best of them.

                “Knowing the number won’t help you,” she says. She knows that. She knows him. Any number at all is too much weight, and he will bear it anyway, because that’s all he knows to do.

                She leans forward and places a careful kiss to the top of his head, right next to the growing bruise she put on him.

                She would have given almost anything to protect him from this.

                “He was in my head,” Clint says, terrified and resolute, like a child at confession. “He turned my head into a fucking playground, Nat. I can’t-- the things he asked me. How to hurt you, how to hurt all of you. What would hurt the _most_. And I told him.”

                It’s a lasting kind of terror, the way your own mind can work, the wayward paths you walk when you think about the fault lines in the people you love. Natasha has spent hours thinking through how she would torture all of them. It’s how she protects them. It’s how she makes them stronger.

                There are secrets she would hold until her death, if she could, and Clint has always been a great deal more faithful than she is.

                She runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll bring you his heart,” she says. Her voice is steady, precise. Her fingers shake as they work through the cornsilk of his hair.

                “Don’t go near him,” Clint says. His hand, finally, tightens around hers. “Nat, don’t go anywhere near him. I told him everything. I told him--”

                “Shush,” she says. “I’ll bring you his heart. And then it won’t matter what he knows.”

                Clint swallows. When his eyes find hers, they’re desperate with fear. “Don’t go,” he says. “Nat, don’t go alone.”

                Natasha smiles at him. There’s a dull ache in her chest that might be heartbreak, and a restless, building tension that is absolutely rage. “Then get out of bed,” she says, “and we’ll kill him together.”

                His hand curls harder around her own. It hurts, finally. The pain – the strength it implies – soothes the worst of her worries.

                _Salvageable_ , she thinks. _Weapons check complete._

 

 

 

                Jason sends Tony and Bucky to Fury, to figure out what the hell is going on. Steve, who’s been orbiting around the team with unprecedented restraint, hesitates before following them, and Jason blinks after him, wondering why for a second it looked like maybe he would’ve preferred to stay with Jason.

                Someone needs to have a long talk with Steve Rogers, and it should be Phil Coulson, but Coulson’s laid up in SHIELD Medical, flirting with death like it bought him a drink. And so nobody says anything, and Jason adds _Get Nat to analyze Steve_ to the bottom of a very long list.

                Jason posts himself outside Coulson’s door, and he waits. Medical staff go in and out, and Jason waits, as patiently as he can, because the last thing he wants to do right now is distract the people who are keeping Coulson alive.

                Finally, a group of three trickle out together, and one of them beelines toward him. Jason swallows and straightens up, plants his feet. Waits for the hit.

                “He’s stable,” the doctor says. “Resting,” he adds, a second later. “Don’t go in there and upset him. If he rips those stitches---”

                Jason blinks. His heart thuds hard in his chest, stops for a second, and then kicks into a rushed, desperate beat. “He’s gonna make it?”

                The doctor tips his head. “If the stitches hold,” he says, “if the helicarrier doesn’t fall from the sky. If he rests like he’s supposed to.”

                “Doc,” Jason says, because he can’t deal with _if’_ s right now. All he wants is some kind of promise.

                “It’s likely that he’ll live,” the doctor says. “But we won’t know what recovery’s going to look like for a while, and it’s going to look a lot worse if you go in there and rile him up.”

                “No riling,” Jason says, hands up. He’s smiling like an idiot. He tries to bite it back. “I swear.”

                The doctor sighs, but there’s an answering smile in his eyes. “Where’s that redhead?” he asks, like he doesn’t know perfectly well what Natasha’s name is. “She’s a calming presence.”

                “Yeah,” Jason says, “she’s in with Barton.”

                “Oh good. Nice to know we won’t be fishing him out of the air vents.”

                Jason’s not sure how that rumor got started. It is, he thinks, entirely possible that Barton started it himself, so everyone would be busy looking at air vents while he flung himself out the nearest window.

                “Anyway,” the doctor says, a second later, “I guess we can’t keep you out, since Batman’s already in there.”

                Jason blinks. “He’s—what?” He hadn’t thought about where Bruce went. That whole timeframe between watching Coulson get stabbed and coming back to himself in the exam room, with Bucky wiping the blood off his hands, is a little muddled.

                He’d figured Bruce was off somewhere, stealing SHIELD secrets or hunting down Loki.

                “Yeah,” the doctor says, jerking his chin toward the door. “Kicked the door open and wouldn’t leave. We were gonna call for backup, but, honestly, this isn’t even the weirdest shit your team’s pulled. And, I mean, he’s _Batman_.”

                Jason stares at him for a second longer and then turns sharply on his heels and tugs the door open.

                Bruce is sitting at Coulson’s bedside. He isn’t wearing his mask.

                Jason slams the door shut behind him. Bruce looks up, face focused but empty, like an especially attentive mannequin. After a moment, the emptiness clears up just enough for a short nod.

                “Jason,” he says.

                “Jesus _Christ_ ,” Jason says back. His eyes go immediately to the cameras in two separate corners.

                Bruce follows Jason’s stare. “Oracle,” he says. “They aren’t recording.”

                Jason stares at him for a second longer and then looks to Coulson. They’ve got him tipped up on his side, hooked up to about a dozen different machines. He looks the way he looks sometimes when he falls asleep on the quinjet after a long mission.

                He looks the way he looks when he’s sleeping somewhere he knows is safe.

                Jason’s eyes go from Coulson to Bruce and back to Coulson again. Bruce has one hand resting on the bed railing, and Coulson has one thrown out on the sheets, reaching, not quite touching Bruce’s but laid there like maybe it _was_ touching, back when Coulson was awake.

                “Holy shit,” Jason says, as a truly ludicrous idea starts to from in his head. “Bruce--”

                “How is Hawkeye?” Bruce interrupts him like he’s doing him some kind of favor. When Jason just scowls at him, Bruce gestures toward Coulson. “He’ll want to know, when he wakes up.”

                “And you’re gonna be here?” Jason asks. It comes out of his mouth like a challenge. “You’re gonna be here, when Coulson wakes up?”

                He doesn’t mean it as an accusation. Not exactly. He’s still hoping, fervently and a little desperately, that he doesn’t have anything to accuse him of. The only theory that makes any Goddamn sense is that Bruce Wayne is sitting at Phil Coulson’s bedside because he feels responsible for not saving him earlier.

                The _other_ theory – the one that’s caught up in how close Bruce is sitting, how he hasn’t dropped his hand from the bedside railing, even though his fingers have curled uneasily around the metal – is not something Jason can think about right now.

                “What the fuck,” Jason says. “Bruce. Are you gonna be here when he wakes up?”

                Bruce’s eyes drop to Coulson’s face. Coulson’s on his side, curled toward him, and that could just be an accident, but Jason has this horrifying, dizzying idea that maybe Bruce _moved the chair_ so he could watch him sleep.

                _What the fuck,_ he thinks. _What the **fuck**._

                “I’d like to be,” Bruce says. There’s nothing at all in his voice, but his tone is soft, and his eyes look sad, and Jason has been chasing the god of mischief and a glowing blue cube around the world, but this tiny hint of vulnerability is the weirdest shit he’s seen all week.

                “I may have to leave,” Bruce says. He squares his shoulders. His hand drops to his side. He hasn’t put the mask back on yet, but he’s Batman again, when five seconds ago he was just Bruce Wayne. “Gotham’s not steady right now. Neither is the League.”

                “What the fuck’s wrong with the League?” Jason not sure if he’s offended by the sharp detour toward shoptalk or deeply grateful for it. Maybe both. “Isn’t Superman fixed?”

                “That knife,” Bruce says. He nods his head toward the bedside table, where the knife is just sitting out, unsheathed and sharp. “Be glad you didn’t use it on Hawkeye. Superman is still recovering.”

                “Recovering? _Superman_?”

                “It’s.” Bruce falters for a second. Something passes over his face, a shadow. A regret, maybe. “Wonder Woman is with him, in case Loki’s control comes back. When he recovers, the League will be able to help you. As it is, the others are still needed in Metropolis.”

                The relationship between Bruce and Superman is fraught, but Jason knows Bruce considers him a friend. Or as close to a friend as he gets, anyway.

                “Nat saw Tim,” Jason says. “In with Clint, earlier.”

                Bruce nods, says nothing.

                “She said he looks alright,” Jason continues. “That suit hides bruises pretty well, I’d imagine, but he’s not walking like the Joker got some tire iron practice in, so--”

                “No,” Bruce says. His voice is harsh, stone grating against stone. The hand at his side curls into a fist and then relaxes, immediately, but Jason catches the tell anyway. “Nightwing intercepted him.”

                There’s something in Bruce’s voice that wants to be disapproval. Jason wonders what, exactly, Nightwing did to the Joker when he found him skulking toward Tim with a tire iron in his hand.

                He thinks he might have to buy Dick Grayson a drink after all of this is over.

                Bruce is looking at Coulson again. Jason can’t read him. He has never in his life been able to read Bruce Wayne. And he has no idea what the hell he’s looking at, what could possibly be between the two of them. The last time he saw them together was back in that hotel cafe, after Nightwing stopped Jason from torturing Stane.

                In light of the way Bruce is looking at Coulson now, that moment reads very differently.

                “Bruce,” Jason says, because he can’t, because he _has to_ , “what the fuck is this?”

                Bruce doesn’t move. He breathes in, then out, and his eyes close for a moment. When they open, they’re Batman-blank.

                “It’s nothing,” he says.

                “Fuck you,” Jason says, immediately defensive.

                Bruce shakes his head, leans back, puts space between him and Coulson and fills it up with all that baggage he drags along after him, like he thinks someone’s going to give him a prize for it someday. Like he’s some deluded Atlas, thinking he’s holding up the whole damn world, when the world spins on just fine without him, oblivious to all the weight he puts on himself.

                “It’s nothing, Jason,” Bruce says.

                Jason stares at him. “Jesus Christ, Bruce,” he says, when he thinks he can get through it without punching Bruce in the mouth. “You think this is what nothing looks like? Flying your ass all the way here and saving his life and bullying your way into his fucking hospital room? Is that how Waynes do nothing?”

                “That’s what we decided,” Bruce says, voice edged with ever-lessening patience. “That’s what I made it.”

                “Okay,” Jason says, throwing his hands up. “Sure. It’s _nothing_. Well, enjoy your bedside nothing vigil, Bruce, and if you ever decide to have grownup talk about your feelings, please, for the love of God, pick Grayson.”

                Bruce’s jaw tightens. “Don’t you have a Tesseract to find?”

                “I have a god to kill,” Jason tells him. “The Tesseract’s a bonus.”

                “Killing Loki isn’t going to solve the problem,” Bruce says. “There will be others who come here looking for the Tesseract.”

                Jason shrugs. He looks at Coulson, at the white bandages down his side, the unhealthy pallor of his skin, the machines fluttering and humming around him. He gets a flash of the blood smeared down the wall, of the pool that had been left after they took Coulson away.

                “No, there won’t,” Jason says. “Not after they see what I’m gonna do to Loki.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SECRET SHIP: Phil Coulson and Bruce Wayne have been caught in a very secret, very fraught, on/off saga since the [Bat Family Christmas](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/post/169205604514/ficlet-do-every-stupid-thing) during "Your Way Up to the Light." 
> 
> Congratulations to those of you who figured it out early!


	11. Chapter 11

                There’s dust in his mouth when he wakes up, and a dull, stretched-out ache in his joints like someone’s been bending his limbs in all the wrong directions. He keeps his eyes closed until he’s ready to see whatever he’s done this time.

                “You are quite resilient, Dr. Banner,” a voice says. “Does it hurt, being back in this shape?”

                Bruce blinks his eyes open. He’s on a pile of rubble, and there’s sunlight on his face. It’s not from a skylight. He ripped the roof open when he fell through it.

                He groans and rolls over, curling up. It’s not comfortable. The dust and dirt and ruined metal scrape against his oversensitive skin.

                He’s naked. Again.

                He lies still, feeling the fluttery pulse of his heartbeat in his throat, the headache hooking in like someone’s spilled hot paint thinner in his skull.  

                He doesn’t remember enough to patch everything together, but he remembers chasing after the redhead. Natasha. He remembers throwing her against a wall.

                Bruce sits up and puts his head in his hands. He breathes in. “Who’d I hurt?”

                 “You frightened some of the agents,” the man tells him. “And I believe one of them had to exit his plane with unusual haste. But no one was seriously harmed.”

                It’s Thor. Bruce knows that much. But he can’t look at him just yet.

                “Natasha.” Bruce can see her face. He gets a taste of the other guy’s rage, and it feels like shooting tequila on a seasick stomach. He feels like he’s going to be sick. He always feels that way, after.

                “I did see a scratch or two. But, as I said, Doctor, there were no serious injuries.”

                The memories tend to trickle back in over time. Usually, it’s the violent ones that come back first. All that smashing, breaking. All that blood. The screams.

                He shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes. They’re dry and scratchy, probably bloodshot. Every bone and joint and muscle in his body aches. Sometimes, when he comes back together, things shift and settle for a while after.

                “Your brother,” Bruce says, “is a real son of a bitch.”

                “Hm,” Thor says, musingly. “Is that a common figure of speech here? Or are you insulting my mother?”

                “Figure of speech,” Bruce says, dropping his hands so he can look at the blonde Norse god sitting beside him in the rubble of a building he’d flattened by falling from the sky. “I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m really not up for a fight right now.”

                Thor flashes a smile, bright and amused, uncomplicated. He’s comfortable in his skin in a way Bruce hasn’t been for years. It’s easier, probably, when your body has never turned against you.

                “That might be for the best,” Thor tells him. He knocks his elbow against Bruce’s bicep, and Bruce double takes at him, because he understands Asgardians might be more relaxed, but it’s still a strange thing, casually touching a naked man. “You are quite the warrior, Dr. Banner.”

                “I’m really not,” Bruce says. “It’s all the other guy.”

                “And he is quite the warrior, as well.” Thor shrugs, smiles again. “But you are here, and he is gone, and I don’t know many who could banish a creature like that.”

                “I think he just gets bored.” Bruce looks around, staring blearily at the trashed remnants of what must have been an empty warehouse. He’s hoping for a jumpsuit, a uniform. Hell, he’ll take a towel.

                “Perhaps,” Thor says, magnanimously. He rises to his feet, stretching easily, and Bruce doesn’t get intimidated by how large he is, how ridiculously tall, because there’s nothing in this world that could kill him. And, anyway, Thor doesn’t seem like much of a bully.

                “Do, uh.” Bruce pauses, clears his throat. “Did you see a mall anywhere near by? A gas station? I’m kinda—you may have noticed. I’m kinda naked here.”

                Thor blinks down at him. Bruce blinks back. The moment stretches longer than it needs to.

                “Ah,” Thor says. “Of course.”

                He does something to his cape, tugs at the fabric, and suddenly he’s handing it to Bruce.

                “Sure,” Bruce says. Because _sure_. Because _fine_. This is his life. Norse gods are handing him capes. He shuffles to his feet, cape bunched in front of him, and tries his best to ignore how Thor eyes him with frank curiosity as he ties the cape clumsily around himself, like he’s a sorority girl headed to her first toga party.

                “God,” Bruce says, staring down at the length of red fabric that cuts off at his knees. “This is one of those moments where you really start to wonder how you ended up here.”

                “You jumped out of a plane,” Thor tells him, helpfully. “The pilot baited you. Your creature is remarkably brave, Doctor, but I’m afraid he is not very clever.”

                “No,” Bruce agrees. “Fortunately not.”

                “I followed you,” Thor says. “I worried what would happen, if you landed here in a fury.”

                Bruce blinks. He stares down at the cape-toga for a long second and then slowly raises his eyes to Thor’s face. He remembers, suddenly, catching the hammer with his chin, flying backwards. He remembers the fierce flash of Thor’s grin as he charged at him. He remembers Thor’s voice, _We’re not your enemies, Dr. Banner. Try to think!_

                 He thinks about all the people he could have hurt, if Thor hadn’t been there to stop him.

                “Thanks,” he says. It’s embarrassing, how earnest it is. He clears his throat, drops his eyes.

                “You are very welcome, Doctor,” Thor says. He puts a hand on Bruce’s bare shoulder, tightens his grip for a second.

                Bruce takes a breath, shakes his head. “Alright.” He looks around, shifts his weight. He needs to find some shoes. “Okay, so--”

                “It is time to get back to the others.”

                Bruce’s head snaps up. “Get back to— no way. I almost _killed_ those guys. I’m not going back there.”

                Thor tips his head to the side. The look he gives him is confused, not judgmental. Bruce is handling all the judgement on his own. “You will not rejoin the fight?”

                “Yeah, uh.” Bruce gestures at the wreckage around them. “I kinda think I’ve fought enough.”

                “The fight never ends,” Thor says. He doesn’t sound sad when he says it, but there’s an odd echo to it, a resignation that reminds Bruce how old he is. It’s a strange thing, the dichotomy of it, how Thor seems simultaneously so old and so incredibly young.

                “Maybe,” Bruce says. “But the thing is I don’t so much fight as I butcher everything on the battlefield.”

                “You did not butcher me,” Thor says. “And every young warrior needs time to learn the limits of their strength.”

                “I’m not young,” Bruce tells him. It’s ridiculous, saying that to Thor, but he hasn’t been young for a long damn time.

                Thor smiles at him. It’s gentle, and somehow not condescending. “If you are tired, then you should rest. And it is safer for you to rest among people who can protect you, and protect the world from you.”

                “I was fine on my own.” He was. He was _fine_. He was good. He wasn’t causing any problems. He hadn’t hurt anyone in years.

                “No one is fine on their own,” Thor says. He looks away. For the first time, a shadow passes over his face, something that darkens the nearly obnoxious sunshine glow of him. “People who are alone become desperate. Desperate people can do terrible things.”

                Bruce thinks about Loki. And because he’s not an ingrate or an idiot, and because the only thing standing between him and public nudity is this guy’s cape, he doesn’t point out that Loki’s machinations have resulted in the deaths of dozens of people.

                “Besides,” Thor says, with a sudden smile, “my brother will bring some kind of great battle here. And if it does not find you with us, it may find you without us. I can stop your creature from harming the innocent, but not if we are fighting on separate fronts.”

                Bruce understands the point. He can see the logic of it. He’s grateful, even, for what Thor is offering.

                His ribs ache in his chest, like they’re still too large to fit. The muscles in his arms twinge and burn, stretched too far. Everything is heavy and slow and uncomfortable. He wants to find somewhere dark and cold, and he wants to sleep through the end of the whole world.

                He’s humiliated by what he’s done. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to look Natasha Romanoff in the face again. He’s worried about what that other one, Jason, is going to do in retaliation. He doesn’t want to hear the recriminations, because he deserves them.

                The worst thing, he thinks, is that he worked so hard to grow into something that wasn’t his father, and here he is, waking up in pain, wrecked and in the wreckage, having hurt people he didn’t mean to hurt because he couldn’t make himself stop.

                He can’t change what he’s done. Maybe he can’t fix what he is. Maybe he’s always going to break everything he touches.

                Thor looks at him, bright and shining, broad-shouldered and powerful. He doesn’t look breakable.

                It’s selfish, leaning on someone else. But he’s been alone for so long.

                “Yeah,” he says, finally. He almost never gets what he wants, but at least this time maybe he won’t hurt anyone else in the process. “Alright. Let’s get back to the others.”

 

 

 

                Jason’s almost asleep when Fury speaks in his ear. “I’m getting real tired of listening to Rogers and Stark shit-talk each other,” he announces. “Where the hell are the rest of you?”

                Jason sighs with his eyes still closed. He could’ve used a Goddamn nap. “On my way,” he says. “Is Bucky refereeing?”

                “Sure,” Fury says. “In the sense that he’s standing around, watching it happen. Maybe I’ll give him a whistle, see if that helps.”

                Jason stands up, swallowing back a yawn, and swipes the dagger Talia gave him off the table. “I’m taking this with me,” he says. He has just enough manners not to gesture at Bruce with the sharp end before he sheathes it. “Keep an eye on Coulson. If he dies on your watch, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

                “I’ll stay as long as I can,” Bruce intones. His voice has gone all Gotham-grim and Batman-serious, so maybe he’s starting to feel better. “Keep me updated.”

                “Get fucked, old man,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. “If you want in our business, hack our comms like a grownup. You gotta fight for what you want. You taught me that.”

                “I found you stealing the tires off the Batmobile,” Bruce says. “I never had to teach you to fight.”

                Jason shuts the door behind him before he can dwell too much on what Bruce said, or why he feels so weird about it.

                Natasha is standing in the hallway. She’s wearing a fresh uniform, dressed for war. There’s a look in her eyes like a shark in a tank, just waiting for blood to hit the water.

                “Shit, Nat,” he says. “You starting to take things a little personally?”

                “Barton’s good to fight,” she reports. “After this is over, I’m going to recommend he’s pulled until he passes a psych eval.”

                “Aw, hell,” Jason says. “He hates those.”

                They all hate them. Except for Nat, who regards them as a fun personal challenge, and Coulson, who’s as resilient as bedrock and twice as stable.

                “Loki hurt him,” Natasha says, plain and even, like it’s not something to be ashamed of. “He isn’t well.”

                Jason considers her for a second. “But he’s good? Good enough to fight?”

                “I don’t think forcing him to stay out of it is going to help,” she says, which is a hedge if he’s ever heard one. “And I think we’re going to need him.”

                Jason sighs and glances over his shoulder, toward the room Barton’s in. He figures Tim is probably in there with him, which makes him think of Bruce, which makes him whip his head back toward Natasha. “Hey,” he says, “did you know Batman and Coulson are fucking?”

                She blinks at him. And then she does it again. “Your intel’s old,” she says, with the languid calm of someone who always knows too Goddamn much. “A couple years out of date.”

                “Jesus Christ.” Jason pauses, tries to figure out which option is worse. “They’ve been fucking for two years? Or they stopped two years ago?”

                Her eyes slide over Jason’s shoulder. She frowns at the door behind him. “Is he in there with Coulson right now?”

                And there’s that shark again, swimming a little closer to the surface. Jason wonders if he’s going to get to watch Natasha kick Bruce’s ass.

                “Sure as hell is,” he says. “They’re practically holding hands.”

                Natasha’s eyes narrow. She hesitates for a second and then breathes out, slow and controlled. “Well,” she says. “Coulson can make his own mistakes.”

                “Ouch,” Jason says, with a toothy grin. “Damn, Nat.”

                Natasha shrugs a single shoulder. Whatever’s in her eyes isn’t kind or forgiving.

                Jason hears Bruce, in that unfamiliar tone. _It’s nothing. That’s what we decided. That’s what I made it._ Hell, maybe he’ll _help_ Natasha kick Bruce’s ass.

                “Oh, Goddamn it.” He runs a hand down his face. “Now we gotta kick his ass, too? Fuck, Nat, our dance card’s getting kinda full.”

                “That’s not what Coulson would want,” she says. “And we have other things to focus on right now.” Which is not a _no_ so much as it’s a _not right now_.

                “Yeah, fair enough,” Jason says, a little begrudgingly. He moves down the hallway and raps his knuckles against the door to Barton’s room. “Hey,” he calls through the door. “Put your clothes on and get out here. We’ve got a world to save.”

                Tim pops the door open and treats Jason to a look of long-suffering exasperation. “Todd,” he greets.

                “Robin,” Jason returns. “Nice to see you with your skull intact. Guess the Joker didn’t find you?”

                “Not recently, no,” Tim says. His face does something interesting, folding up in a way that’s new. Before Jason can ask what the hell that’s about, Tim steps out into the hallway, and, a second later, Clint follows.

                He looks exactly the same, except for the marks of sleep deprivation and the listless, shellshocky blankness he’s carrying around his eyes and mouth. He’s wiping his clean hands with a paper towel, mechanically and repeatedly, and he doesn’t stop until Tim carefully takes the towel away from him and steps back into the exam room to throw it away.

                Clint startles a little when he goes, shifts uneasily at being left. After a beat, he steps closer to Nat and Jason, like he’s afraid of being too far away.

                He never quite manages to look Jason in the face.

                “Hey, Jay,” he says, eyes tracking a weird path that darts from Jason’s shoes almost to his chin before dropping somewhere around mid-clavicle. “You alright?”

                “Sure, kid,” Jason says, even though Clint’s not a kid anymore. Hasn’t really been a kid since a year or so after they met. It’s just that, out of all of them, he’s always felt like the youngest, even with Nat on the team. “ _You_ alright?”

                “Gonna be,” Clint says. It rings a little too hollow for determined, a bit too angry for resigned. It’s a promise, maybe. A goal.

                Jason frowns. “You know you can sit this one out, right? We’ll put Cap in something purple, make him throw his shield around from a distance. Maybe he’ll jump off a building or two if he gets real into character.”

                Clint smiles. It seems genuine, even if it doesn’t do much about the weight pulling on his shoulders or the empty, searching look in his eyes. “I’ll be alright, Jay,” he says. “I’m good to fight.”

                He says so, and Nat says so, and it should be Coulson’s call, but Coulson got stabbed in the back by the guy who brainwashed Clint, and so it’s Jason’s call.

                “You don’t get a ribbon for perfect attendance, Barton,” Jason says. “If you need a break, no one’s gonna blame you.”

                “I need to fight,” Clint says, and that, at least, sounds true. His eyes flick to Jason’s, just for a second. “I need to make sure he doesn’t do it to anyone else.”

                Jason weighs it out in his head, but he knows almost immediately when he’s going to do. If Coulson were here, maybe he’d pull him. Probably _would_ pull him, because keeping Clint on the roster is going to drain him further and fuck up the team’s dynamics. No one’s going to feel right about leaving him in a vulnerable position.

                But Jason knows the pull of revenge. He knows the burden of it. And he’s not going to sideline Clint when he needs to find his way through.

                “Alright, kid,” he says. “You’re in.”

                Clint nods. There’s a second where he seems to catch his breath, and then he tips his chin toward Tim. “He’s in, too.”

                “Jesus Christ,” Jason says, “this isn’t a fucking dinner party, Barton. You don’t get to bring a plus one.”

                “He’s in,” Clint repeats. Beside him, Tim raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms over his chest.

                Jason shoots Natasha a look and catches her smiling in what he is horrified to realize is approval. “Sure,” he says. “Fine. Nat, are your angels gonna be joining us, too?”

                Her smile gets wider, shows teeth. “I invited them,” she tells him, pointedly unapologetic. “But they got called in to help with Metropolis cleanup. I don’t think they’ll make it.”

                Which is too Goddamn bad, really, because their team definitely could use more air support. And, anyway, Jason _likes_ Riley and Sam. Riley and Dick Grayson are the only people Jason knows who can turn a street brawl into a party, and Sam is an exceptionally good sport about patching up all the cuts that no one wants to go to Medical for.

                “Well,” Jason says, “if we ever see Bruce Banner again, I’ll ask if he’s got a weaponized sweetheart or two to bring, too.”

                “Oh, good,” Nat says. “That’s thoughtful, Jason. Good for you.”

                Tim makes a soft, aggrieved sound. “Please don’t ever call me anyone’s sweetheart ever again.”

                “Sorry, sweetheart,” Clint says. “I’ll talk to him.”

                “Thanks,” Tim says, immediately. “ _You_ can say it all you want.”

                Clint smiles at him. He looks tired and pale and a little dopey, but the look on his face is damn near sweet enough to make up for it.

                Jason wretches, loudly, just to settle everyone down. “Alright, lovebirds, keep it PG-13. This is a professional environment.” Before anyone can voice a contrary opinion, he nods up the hallway. “Nat, Clint, round everyone up. We’ve gotta strategize.”

                “Oh, look,” Nat says, looping an arm through Clint’s, “Coulson takes a nap, and now Jason’s making _strategy_.”

                “It’s a coup,” Clint says. “He’s staging a coup.” He reaches back for Tim, but Jason gets a hand in Tim’s uniform, tugs him out of his reach.

                “Robins-only meeting,” he says. “I’ll give him back when we’re done.”

                Clint hesitates. He searches Tim’s face, and, whatever he sees, he must find reassuring. When Nat tugs gently on his arm, he lets himself be led away.

                “You gonna look after him?” Jason asks, as soon as Nat and Clint are out of listening distance.

                Tim stares after them for a moment before looking over at Jason. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll look after him.”

                “Because,” Jason continues, “we’re actually pretty good at this shit. My team, I mean. We’re pretty good at looking after each other.”

                “I’m not here because I think you can’t,” Tim says. He’s got some of Bruce’s implacable calm, but he’s learned, somehow, not to be such an asshole about it.

                “Alright,” Jason says, slowly. He hesitates, sizing Tim up. Things have always been awkward between them, but it’s easier when they’re both making an effort. “Hey,” he says, “what the hell happened with Nightwing and the Joker?”

                Tim grimaces. His eyes dart away for a second and then slowly drag back to Jason. “Did Batman tell you?”

                Jason rolls his eyes. “Does he tell anyone anything?”

                They share a look, united for a second by their shared frustration, and then Tim sets his chin a little higher. “The Joker’s in a coma,” he says.

                “Jesus _Christ_ ,” Jason says. “Nightwing get a little too fancy with his twirly batons?”

                “Something like that,” Tim says. He sounds tired. He does not sound angry or disappointed.

                The thing about Dick’s temper is that, when it breaks, it breaks _hard_. Jason is a thunderstorm, likely to throw lightning at anyone who pisses him off, but Dick’s a timebomb, a volcano. Of all the frayed tempers in the Bat roster, Grayson’s is the only one that’s ever really made Jason nervous.

                Well, and Bruce’s, but only because he sets off everyone else.

                “How’s he dealing with it?” he asks, once he’s adjusted himself to the idea that Dick Grayson beat the Joker into a coma for threatening Tim with a tire iron.

                “He’s sensitive,” Tim says, which is fair, but also smacks of a certain lack of gratitude. “I don’t blame him. It wasn’t necessary to go as far as he did, and he needs to learn better self-control, but the Joker knows my name. Something had to be done.”

                “You want me to kill him?” he offers. “It’ll take the heat off Nightwing. I’m kinda used to Batman yelling at me.”

                Tim frowns at him, in that prim, frustrated way he does whenever Jason makes a perfectly reasonable offer that he, for some reason, finds highly objectionable. “When this is over,” he says, “I want you to take the Joker into SHIELD custody. Killing him will cause problems. Making him disappear is a more elegant solution.”

                Jason makes a face. “Aw, c’mon, I don’t want him _here_.”

                “I would consider it,” Tim continues, doggedly, “a personal favor.”

                Jason heaves out a sigh. “You’re such an asshole,” he says. Which is not a no. Which isn’t even an attempt at negotiation. Because of course he’s gonna do it. Tim Drake doesn’t ask for favors very often.

                “I appreciate it,” Tim says, with a small smile.

                Jason rolls his eyes again, as theatrically as he can. It’s easier for him, since he’s not wearing a mask. There are, he thinks, a variety of underappreciated perks to going semi-legitimate in the villain exterminating business.

                “You know,” Jason says, as he starts up the hallway, toward his team and the strategy meeting that promises to be a bitch and a half. “With Coulson out, this is my team. If you’re gonna work with us, you’re actually gonna need to follow my orders.”

                 “Oh, really?” Tim asks, innocuously. “Is that what the rest of your team does? Follow your orders?”

                Jason laughs. He can’t help it. It’s startled out of him.

                “Okay,” he says, as Tim falls in step beside him, soundless and steady. “Listen here, you spooky little shit, this isn’t Gotham. There are _rules_.”


	12. Chapter 12

                By the time Jason makes it to the strategy meeting, Fury’s given up on mediating and is standing with his back to the room, staring down at the bridge below. Hill’s still at the conference table, laptop in front of her, looking about five seconds away from drawing her sidearm, emptying the clip into either Tony or Steve, and then stomping off to save the world herself.

                Jason is begrudgingly impressed. It usually takes him a solid half-hour to piss off the higher-ups this bad.

                “Hey, Buck,” Jason says, as he takes the empty seat at the head of the table. “How’s the meeting?”

                “Swell,” Bucky says, with the narrow-eyed squint of a man looking back on storming French beaches with a sort of bittersweet longing.

                “Nice of you to show up, Todd,” Fury calls out, without turning around. “That new shadow of yours doesn’t have clearance to be in here.”

                Jason glances at Tim. “He’s my bodyguard. I’m feeling distressed about my personal safety. I don’t know if you noticed, but I almost got launched off this ship a while ago."

                Tim shoots him a skeptical look, but, when Jason waves him toward the empty seat next to Clint, he chooses to follow along instead of causing problems. Jason figures that trait is exactly why Bruce has kept him around so long.

                Fury turns around and levels one of his more impressive glowers at Tim. “I didn’t invite any bats on my ship.”

                Jason rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we’re not vampires. We don’t actually need to be invited in.”

                Tim’s mouth tips up in a small smile, and Natasha full-on grins at him, and it’s only then that Jason realizes he said _we_ instead of _they_.

                “Listen,” he says, barreling forward before anyone decides to comment, “can we focus? We’ve got to strategize our way into a killing a god. Robin’s more useful than he isn’t. I’d prefer we have too many people on this instead of too few.”

                “Which is exactly the point,” Steve says, suddenly, swinging his head around to stare directly at Tony. “Loki needs Stark Tower, and you handed it over without--”

                “They are _civilians_ with _families_ ,” Tony spits back, going from zero to venomous so damn fast that Jason figures they’ve been having this fight for a while. “They never had a chance against Loki.”

                Steve frowns over at him, jaw set at an unfriendly angle. “Did you tell them what’s coming, or did you just make the decision for them? Whatever’s on the other side of that portal could kill the whole city.”

                Tony shakes his head, sneering with a derision Jason hasn’t seen since the last time Justin Hammer cornered him at a charity gala. “They are _civilians_ with non-lethal ammunition, Rogers. A pile of bodies isn’t going to slow Loki down. He’d just step around them on his way to the arc reactor.”

                “Alright,” Jason says, “what the fuck are you--”

                “That’s what war _is_ ,” Steve says. “It’s piling up bodies, Stark. Maybe your security could have held him, maybe they couldn’t, but we won’t know, because you sent them _home_.”

                “You evacuated the Tower?” Jason’s question breaks Tony’s focus. He glances over, face screwed up like he expects to be told how stupid he is, like somehow Howard Stark rose from the grave and found a place at this table. “The place is empty?”

                “They’re not _soldiers_ ,” Tony says, more plaintive than he was with Steve. “Jason, they’re just mall cops in better uniforms.”

                “They’re trained,” Hill says. “And vetted. You employ a lot of veterans.”

                “Get the fuck out of my personnel files,” Tony says, plaintiveness evaporating. “Who the hell authorized you to snoop in a _private company’s_ \---”

                Jason shoots her an exasperated looked. “Jesus, Hill, did that sound helpful to you in your head before you said it?”

                “So they _aren’t_ just hired muscle,” Steve says. “These guys were soldiers?”

                “They are _hired security_ ,” Tony counters, “working for a paycheck. They protect SI data and chase off tourists. They didn’t sign up to die fighting a Norse god.”

                “You should’ve told them,” Steve says, low and quiet, tone so heavy with disappointment that Jason damn near gets flashbacks to Bruce Wayne. “But of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t. You’re not gonna make the hard calls. It’s fun to play hero so long as no one has to die.”

                “Okay,” Jason says, as Bucky hisses in a breath. “Woah.”

                “They’re _paid security_ ,” Tony snaps. “They aren’t enlisted men, you sanctimonious asshole, and this isn’t a war. They’re employees doing a job I pay them for, which makes their safety my responsibility. I’m not going to be responsible for unnecessary and pointless deaths.”

                “People have a right to pick what they fight for,” Steve says. “You’ve should’ve told them the stakes and let them decide.”

                Tony throws his arms out. “Well, I fucking _didn’t_. It’s done. It’s over. Can we concentrate on avoiding that pile of bodies?”

                “Why are you so worried, Stark? Yours won’t be in the pile.”

                “ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says, half-rising from his chair.

                Jason slams his fist down on the table, hard enough to make Hill’s laptop fall right into her lap. Every single person swivels to stare at him, and he lets out a slow, controlled breath. He has no idea how Coulson handles this shit every day. He can already _feel_ the high blood pressure coming after him.

                 “ _Enough_ ,” he says, as Bucky slides back into his seat. “Cap, I swear to God, I know you’re all crazy from the future shock or whatever, but, if you keep running your mouth like that, I’m gonna have to kick your ass again.”

                Steve raises his eyebrows. “Is that you how remember it?”

                “Sure do,” Jason says. “Want a refresher?”

                “Huh,” Tim says, slowly. He leans back in his chair, studies the room. “So this is what it’s like to be a professional?”

                Jason snorts, but manages to bite back a laugh. “Shut up, birdboy, you aren’t even here.”

                Tim raises his hands, palms out, and Jason would almost buy the innocent look he’s pasting on his face, but Clint gives everything away with the tired smile he doesn’t quite manage to hide behind his hand.

                “Alright,” Jason says, trying to redirect before Steve and Bucky brawl it out and drop the team by two super soldiers in the process, “so Stark Tower’s empty, and Loki’s gonna take it.”

                Tony makes a noise like a cat that got stepped on. “The security--”

                “Would not have held it,” Jason says. “I know. Jesus. We’re past the security team thing. Stand down over there, Tony. In the future, Cap, try to remember that being suicidally heroic isn’t the default setting for most people and you’re actually the outlier.”

                “Right,” Natasha says, tone dry enough to make a desert jealous. “He’s certainly the outlier in this room.”

                Jason attempts to convey, with his eyes, and the shape of his mouth, and the middle finger he raises in her direction, how unhelpful she is being at the moment. “Listen, Nat, I know you’re all footloose and giddy because you got your Barton back, but could you stop making jokes and help me corral these fuckers? I am trying to kill a god.”

                “That’s a diplomatic nightmare,” Fury offers, from where he’s still brooding over by the railing. “If one Asgardian can do this much damage, imagine what an army could do.”

                Jason doesn’t roll his eyes, because he is, technically, in charge of the team right now, and he’s trying for a single ounce of Coulson’s grace. “I really don’t think those drapery-wearing fucks are gonna bestir themselves to come down here and cause a problem. If they were such a proactive people, they’d have done more then send Thunder Barbie to wrangle their missing prince.”

                “Thunder Barbie,” Thor repeats, as he strolls into the room, with Bruce Banner sidling anxiously along in his wake. “That did not sound particularly respectful.”

                “I’ll respect you when you keep your Asgardian bullshit off my planet,” Jason says. Hill makes a strangled noise and drops her head into her open hand, and so he decides, out of deference to her fragile nerves, to make more of an effort. “Welcome back, Hammer Time. Nice of you to bring the doctor back, too.”

                “Banner,” Tony says, with a wave. “Glad you’re back, buddy.”

                “Uh,” Banner says, as he sizes up the table and then, with incredible reluctance, takes the seat between Hill and Jason. “Yeah. Sorry.”  

                He’s wearing a SHIELD uniform, which means he was probably naked somewhere, and he’s moving slow and careful, like he’s injured or nauseous or both. He sends a wary glance toward Natasha, and Jason finds it’s difficult to sustain any anger at him when he looks so bedraggled and miserable, like a kitten left outside in a thunderstorm.

                “I’m sorry,” Banner says, to Natasha. “For that whole…” He waves his hands, curls his fingers into claws, grimaces. “For all of that.”

                Natasha raises a single shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t take it personally, Dr. Banner. We knew the risks when we brought you onboard.”

                Banner sighs and drops his gaze to the table. It doesn’t look like he finds Natasha’s words especially comforting.

                “Hey, Thor,” Jason says, just to get a feel for things, “I’m gonna murder your brother. You want the body after, or can I donate it to science?”   

                Thor pauses. He’s taken the empty seat opposite Jason, and his hammer makes a quiet but noticeable _thunk_ when he sets it on the table in front of him.  “I will be returning my brother to Asgard,” he says. “He has committed many crimes, and he must face justice.”

                “Yeah,” Jason says. “Sure. He committed crimes here, he’s gonna face justice here, and then we’ll happily extradite whatever’s left so you guys can have your Asgardian trial about it.”

                “Todd,” Fury says, and there’s a note in his voice, a resignation and a warning, that makes Jason realize his decision has already been made.

                Which is just bad luck for Fury, really, because he’s made the wrong call.

                “Fury,” Jason returns, in as close an approximation of his tone that he can manage.

                Fury finally turns to face him. “If the Asgardians want Loki back--”

                “Then they’re welcome to the pieces,” Jason finishes for him. “We didn’t ask him to fuck with our shit, Fury. He made his choices.”

                “He is not bad,” Thor says. “Not entirely. He has made mistakes, and he will answer for them. He is still--”

                “Yeah, I made mistakes,” Jason says. “Nat made mistakes. Barton over there, _he_ made mistakes. We’ve all made mistakes. I don’t see him trying to make reparations. He isn’t trying to redeem a Goddamn thing. He’s trying to open a hole in the sky, and I really don’t think he’s got Elvis and a tea party and some strippers in a birthday cake waiting on the other side.”

                “Do we know what’s on the other side of the portal?” Banner asks, looking up. “Does anyone know?”

                Jason tips his head toward Thor. “Got any theories?”

                Thor frowns. His hand wraps around the hammer’s handle, which Jason imagines isn’t an omen of good fortune. “My brother has been in exile. He has found some manner of ally to help him, but I do not know who, or what.”

                “And if he brings an army,” Jason says, “is Asgard gonna come down here and clean up their mess?”

                “The Bifrost is gone. My father barely had the power to send me here, and I cannot return without the Tesseract.”

                Jason shares a dark look with Nat and then refocuses on Thor. “So your shithead brother might be bringing an army to destroy this planet, and the Asgardians are gonna do fuck all about it?”

                “Earth is under my protection,” Thor says, like that means anything. Like that isn’t the reason Loki’s here.

                “Yeah,” Jason says, slowly, feeling the weight of it, the truth. “It’s under my protection, too.”

                A stillness passes over the table, and Jason can feel it building in him, all that rage that’s been chasing its own tail for days. There is a way, maybe, for this to end with Loki still alive, but Jason isn’t Bruce Wayne, and he knows that peace is just a temporary cessation of hostilities unless your enemy is good and buried.

                “We’re going to New York,” he says. “If we’re in time to stop Loki from using the arc reactor, then we hold Stark Tower until he’s dead. If we aren’t, we take it back and close the portal. If he fights us, we kill him.”

                “Todd,” Fury says, with a snap of authority that makes Jason sneer on reflex. “Bifrost or not, we can’t afford a war.”

                “We’re already in a war,” Jason says. “We can’t afford to lose it.”

                “This is not a war,” Fury says. “This is a criminal who needs to be apprehended--”

                “No,” Jason says, loud. “He brain-fucked Barton, he stole our Hulk, he almost fucking _murdered_ Coulson, _and_ he said some fucked-up shit to Nat, and, Nat, don’t try tell me that he didn’t, because I know that he did.” Jason shakes his head, sharp and angry. “Fuck feeding him his teeth. I’m gonna feed him his own Goddamn liver.”

                Thor frowns and straightens in his seat. “Loki is of Asgard, and you will not--”

                “Fuck off. I get that he’s your brother. I understand that. And, in recognition of that, I will bring you the biggest piece of his skull I can find after I’m done with him. Okay? Great. That’s settled.”

                “Is Coulson awake yet?” Fury says, turning to Hill. “Someone needs to muzzle Todd.”

                “Oh, suck a dick, Fury,” Jason says, feeling the definite snap of the last of his patience. “If you can find one, with your fucked-up depth perception.”

                Fury tips his head to the side, and Jason figures, well, fuck it, this is the longest job he’s ever had, and Tony does pretty well as a free agent, and it’ll be nice, anyway, not to have to file a report every time he throws a punch, and then Steve Rogers speaks up. “He’s right.”

                Everyone goes still for a second.

                “Not about the depth perception,” Steve clarifies, waving a hand. “That was a horrible thing to say. He’s right about New York, about bringing the fight to Loki.”

                Jason shoots an incredulous look at Bucky and then another one at Tony, but Bucky just looks resigned, and Tony looks too stunned to manage anything else.             

                Well. It’s not how Jason expected things to go, but he’s not in the business of looking gift super soldiers in the mouth.

                “Cap’s in,” Jason says, standing up. “C’mon, Cap, let’s get a jet.”

                Steve Rogers stands up like it’s nothing, squares his shoulders, sets his jaw, and Jason can see, in that tiny span of seconds, exactly why he matters so much to Bucky.

                “No one’s giving you a jet,” Fury says. “Sit back down.”

                “We’ll take Tony’s,” Natasha says. She stands gracefully and then reaches down, fists a hand in Bucky’s shirt, and pulls him to his feet beside her. “Bucky’s in, too.”

                Barton’s on his feet immediately. Tim’s standing beside him a second after that.

                “I didn’t bring a jet,” Tony says, as he climbs to his feet. “Just the suit.”

                “Shit,” Jason says. “Fury, Tony’s gonna buy a SHIELD jet.”

                “I have a jet,” Tim says, casually, and Jason takes a moment to be horrified by the sheer number of billionaires in his social circle.

                Thor stands up. He’s bigger than Jason remembers, and Jason’s not thrilled about that, but he squares off in his direction anyway. “Loki,” Thor says, “will face Asgardian justice for---”             

                “Your Asgardian justice,” Jason says, “can blow every citizen of this green earth. Your shithead brother came down here to my Goddamn planet and fucked around with my Goddamn people, and I’m gonna put bullets in his head until I feel better about that, and _then_ you can apply your ‘Asgardian justice’ to whatever pieces of him you can mop off the sidewalk.” 

                “Hey, Buck,” Steve says, into the quiet that follows, “I get it now. I get why you picked him.”

                Bucky snorts. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, with a small, tired smile, “get to the end of the line, Rogers. I found him first.”

 

 

 

                There’s a slight bit of hysteria when they storm down to the hangar and find the Batjet missing. “Goddamn that shifty motherfucker,” Jason says, with enough volume that most of the SHIELD personnel nearby abruptly find somewhere else to be. “He can’t sit in Medical for _five fucking minutes--_ ”

                “You need a plane?” Garcia, the pilot who flew Jason to the helicarrier, is standing next to her quinjet, with her lanky co-pilot slouching next to her. She’s bruised up, has her right arm in a sling, and he’s got the vaguely glassy-eyed look of someone still coming down off a high dose of painkillers. He’s leaning hard against the side of the plane.

                “Hey,” the co-pilot says. “No offense, man, but you travel with some weird company.”

                “I know,” Jason says, hooking a thumb Steve’s direction. “Look at this fucking deviant. I swear to God.”

                “Yeah,” the co-pilot says, with a lazy smile. “I meant Robin and that Renaissance Faire guy. But hey, Cap, glad to have you back. Big fan. I had Captain America sheets until I was, like, fifteen.”

                Steve hesitates, clearly thrown, but then rallies his manners and nods. “Agent,” he greets, with a formality and respect that makes the co-pilot cackle and then no-shit, honest-to-God blush, dropping his head back against the plane like it’s going to hide the flush blooming across his whole face.

                “Shit,” Jason says, “can he fly us to New York?”

                “Sure,” Garcia says, “if you want to end up crashed in an Iowa cornfield.”

                “Worse places to be,” Barton offers.

                “ _Better_ places to be,” Natasha counters.

                “Haven’t had any word from Fury that authorizes your team to travel,” Garcia says. She blinks at him, slow and focused, with a calm to her that reminds him of Coulson.

                “Yeah,” Jason says, “Fury’s doing that thing where he tells us not to do something and then deliberately doesn’t stop us from doing it, so he can tell the World Security Council that he never authorized us to do what he wanted us to do all along.”

                “Diplomacy,” Natasha clarifies.

                “At least some things haven’t changed,” Steve says, with that world-weary grittiness he seems to be leaning into.

                “Steve likes to tell himself that his CO’s secretly wanted him to do all the shit he did,” Bucky says. “It makes him feel better about being a trouble-making, rule-breaking jackass.”

                Bucky’s tone is fond and exasperated and annoyed, and Jason thinks it’s good for Bucky to have his friend back, but it’d probably be better if his friend stopped being such an asshole to Tony.

                “Hey, Garcia,” Jason says, “we’re gonna steal your plane and go save the world, okay? You mind?”

                “Afraid I’m not authorized to let you do that,” Garcia says.

                There’s a second where things twist tight, tension building between them. The giggly co-pilot drops his chin, face falling into something serious as he looks first to Garcia and then back to Jason. He rolls himself to his feet, shoulders setting into a steady line, and Jason is already regretting having to knock this kid on his ass when Garcia moves, holding her hand up against the co-pilot’s chest, effectively holding him back with maybe half an ounce of pressure.

                “Barton,” she says, nodding over Jason’s shoulder.

                “Hey, Liz,” he says, with a wave and a smile that’s a little sad around the edges, almost ashamed.

                She smiles at him, and it’s a small thing, just the slightest curl at the edges of her mouth. “You know I don’t trust strangers with my planes.”

                “We really need it,” Clint says, earnest like he always is. “We’ve gotta go kill Loki.”

                Her eyes narrow. “That’s the bastard who hurt you?” she asks, and then she steps aside, ushers her co-pilot along as she goes. “Bring it back in one piece,” she says over her shoulder, as she sets off across the hangar.

                “Thanks, Garcia,” Clint says, with another, brighter smile.

                “Hell yeah,” Jason says, hopelessly charmed. “If Fury gives you any trouble, just tell him Captain America beat you up.”

                “I wouldn’t—I did _not_ ,” Steve says, as Natasha and Bucky herd him onto the plane.

                “Gotta loose that wholesome image, Cap,” Jason calls after him. “You’ll never get laid if people think they’re gonna make you late to church.”

                “Do we _have_ to bring that guy?” Tony asks, as he comes clanking up in the full Iron Man armor.

                “Hey, beautiful,” Jason says, taking a moment to admire the suit, because it’s been years, and he still can’t get over this gorgeous, terrifying thing Tony built. “He’d be a lot less of an asshole if you told him you’re in the suit.”

                “I shouldn’t have to,” Tony says. “I shouldn’t have to be a soldier to get his respect.”

                Jason snorts and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s really not what this is about.”

                “Oh, you know what it’s about?” Tony asks, voice going dangerous in a way that Jason’s not sure he appreciates.

                “Yeah, it’s about both of you thinking you’re not good enough for Bucky and both of you being wrong. Now get on the plane, show him your face, and we’ll all hold hands and sing about our feelings on the way to kick some alien ass.”

                “Yeah, no thanks,” Tony says. “I’ll fly myself.”

                “Tony,” Jason says, “will you just---”

                “I’ll scout the Tower,” Tony says, already stepping away. “Report back.”

                “If you try to fight Loki without us--”

                “Don’t worry,” Tony calls back. “My body’s not going to be in the pile, remember?”

                “Son of a bitch,” Jason says, exasperated, as he watches the Iron Man suit stalk its way across the hanger. It’s a hell of a view, even if Jason doesn’t exactly appreciate being left behind.

                “I will travel with you,” Thor announces, as he steps in front of Jason, blocking his view. “And if I find my brother before you do, I will apprehend him. If you attack him while he’s in my custody, I will protect him, although I do not wish to fight you or any of your team.”

                Jason thinks about telling Thor to find his own Goddamn way to New York, but he’d probably just follow Tony. He weights it out, but, in the end, he steps aside and lets Thor climb into the quinjet. After all, he’s seen what that hammer can do, and it’ll be nice to have it fighting on his side, at least for a while.

                “So, uh,” Banner says, with his hands in his pockets and a wan, longsuffering look on his face. “Is this where we sign up to save the world?”

                “No shit?” Jason blinks at him, legitimately surprised. “You’re coming to the fight, Doc?”

                Banner grimaces but nods. He looks willing enough, even if he’s worlds away from eager. “I’m going where he’s going,” he says, nodding after Thor.

                Jason grins and waves Bruce onboard, claps him on the back as he ducks in after him. “Well, hell, Doc, that’s as good a reason as any. Keep love alive, you know?”

                “That’s, wow.” Banner clears his throat. “That’s _really_ not--”

                “Let’s go save the world,” Jason says. Clint and Nat are in the pilot and co-pilot’s seats, and Tim and Bucky are explaining some SHIELD tech to Steve, who’s watching with focused intensity. Thor settles into an empty seat, hammer next to him, and Bruce makes himself as small as possible in an empty corner.

                It’s not the team the world would have chosen, probably. But Jason sure as hell wouldn’t bet against them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Fair warning, I'm going to miss next week's update. Things are a little wild around here. But I'll be back on 10/22, and I'll be posting a few small, (sometimes) spooky fics on my [tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/).


	13. Chapter 13

                When Jason boards the plane, Tony doesn’t follow. Bucky very deliberately does not look at Steve. “Where’s Tony?” he asks.

                Jason shrugs as he walks by. “Iron Man’s scouting ahead,” he says, with the kind of sideways smile that means he is, for now, feeling slightly too mature to yell _bullshit_ at the top of his lungs. “I think he got it into his head that someone needs to go watch Stark Tower.”

                Tony is, objectively, one of the worst scouts on the team. Nat is the best, and then it’s either Clint or Bucky, depending on the mission. Jason and Tony are locked in a permanent competition for the worst because they share an infuriating misconception that the word _scout_ is just a synonym for _first man to the fight_.

                Bucky slowly turns his head to stare at Steve, who has either the shame or the good sense to avoid direct eye-contact. It’s probably shame, since Steve has never once in his life had any Goddamn sense about anything.

                “Steve,” Bucky says, barely audible, quiet enough that no one else on the plane will be able to hear.

                “What?” Steve mutters back, which sounds nothing at all like apology.

                “Rogers,” Bucky tries, a little less restrained.

                Steve scowls down at his hands and works his jaw for a second like he’s trying to bite back something he knows won’t do any good. Bucky wishes Steve had shown a single ounce of this restraint earlier, when he was picking Tony apart.

                “Look,” Bucky says, “I know what it’s like. I came back, same as you. It was just a bit more gradual for me.”

                “That’s not the problem,” Steve says, mouth tight at the corners.

                “Then what the hell’s the problem? What is your problem with Tony? Because this whole team’s a mess, and he’s the one you’re fixated on.”

                Steve’s eyes narrow, and then he tips his head back, lets it thunk against the metal behind his head. “He’s lying,” he says, finally, low and a little angry, like it’s a confession he doesn’t want to make.

                “It’s a team of spies and assassins, Steve,” Bucky reminds him. “You’re gonna have to work a little harder if you’re trying to shock me.”

                Steve’s quiet for a second. “I think you’re probably lying, too.”

                There was a time when Bucky wouldn’t have lied to Steve Rogers for anything. There was a whole stretch of years where the only thing they really had was each other. And now, in this future that neither one of them asked for, Steve’s third on Bucky’s list, and Steve’s list begins and ends with Bucky.

                Bucky can see how that might leave Steve feeling a little unmoored.

                “I might be,” Bucky says, because he can at least be honest about that. “What do you think we’re lying about?”

                Steve runs a hand down his face. He looks pale against the severe black of his STRIKE uniform, and it occurs to Bucky to wonder if he’s eaten a single Goddamn thing in the past twenty-four hours. He knows for a fact that he hasn’t slept, but the two of them don’t need to, not as much as normal people.

                “He doesn’t have multiple pilots for the suit,” Steve says. “He is the _only_ pilot. It’s always him. I’ve been trying to work out if you know. If SHIELD knows.”

                Bucky blinks at him, slow and calm and controlled, and Steve’s face screws up like he’s tasted something awful. Bucky wonders if Steve’s just now realized he can’t read Bucky anymore.

                Years ago, they didn’t lie to each other. But that was a different life, and they were different people. Or maybe Steve’s exactly the same, and only Bucky’s different. Maybe, somehow, that’s worse.

                “What makes you think he’s the only pilot?”

                “I watched the videos. It’s the same flight pattern, every time. And it’s not some AI or algorithm. It’s not _logic_. It’s the same flinch behaviors, same banking preferences. It’s one pilot. It’s just him.”

                _Videos_ , Bucky thinks _._  “Which videos?”

                “The ones in his SHIELD file. A few others.” Steve shrugs. “One of the agents showed me how to search online. You gave me a computer, Buck. What did you think I was going to do with it?”

                And this is always the problem with Steve. He’s smarter than anyone ever expects and never quite smart enough to keep himself out of trouble. Give him an inch of rope, and he’ll find a brand new way to hang himself.

                Bucky wonders which agent it was. He wonders which earnest, starstruck moron let Steve _aw, shucks_ his way into a tutoring session on modern technology. Steve’s never had a problem getting people to underestimate him, and he’s never balked at using that to his advantage. It’s been a lifelong problem, Steve leveraging his earnest, trustworthy face to get people to help him do the stupidest things imaginable.

                Bucky remembers now why he used to wonder why Steve even let people land planes, when it was so much faster for him to just throw himself right out of them.

                “Christ, Steve,” he says, “I give you a tablet so you can find out all our friends are dead, and you use it to spy on Tony?”

                “Takes thirty seconds to read an obituary, Buck,” Steve says, voice iced over. “We didn’t have that many friends left anyway.”

                Bucky closes his eyes. He should’ve known. Steve probably spent half an hour searching every name they knew, counted up his dead and then fixated immediately on protecting what he had left. This is what Steve _does_. This is what he always does.

                His whole damn life, he’s been trudging toward the next fight before he’s even finished wiping the blood off his face from the last one.

                Bucky gets flashes, then, of all the times he picked Steve out of the dirt, all the blood he cleaned away from Steve’s mouth. He gets echoes of old panic, feels the spike of fear that used to hit whenever he realized Steve was late, or missing, or walking through the door with fresh bruises on his face.

                He thinks of how Steve could’ve stayed home, stayed safe. He thinks about Steve, lying to officials, falsifying paperwork, breaking the law trying to get himself enlisted, and he thinks about himself, at eighteen, getting drafted.

                It never does any good, getting mad at Steve. It sure as hell never changes anything. Steve can’t help the way throws himself headlong into every fight any more than a magnet can stop itself pulling toward metal.

                Bucky’s been paying the admission price to sit ringside at Steve’s one-man fight against the whole world for his entire life.

                “Tell me something,” Bucky says, although he _knows_ he should rein it in, bite it back, keep his mouth shut at least until this whole thing is over. “Why’s it always gotta be you? Why’s it gotta be you, every time?”

                Steve’s brow furrows up. “What do you mean?”

                “You know what I mean, asshole,” Bucky says. “You remember, back when we were kids, and you kept trying to join up? Everyone told you. Your doctors told you. _I_ told you. We told you, if you go, you’ll fucking die. And you didn’t care. You kept trying. And then, when you couldn’t, you let them make you into an experiment so you could go anyway.”

                Steve doesn’t flinch at _experiment_. He just shrugs, like he wouldn’t have balked at worse. Like he would’ve let them take his arm, his mind, his whole Goddamn soul. Like nothing he ever had or was mattered much anyway. “Someone had to fight.”

                “Half the fucking neighborhood was fighting, Steve. We needed people back home. There were plenty of support jobs you could’ve done. But that wasn’t good enough for you. It had to be _you_. You had to go yourself, or it didn’t count.”

                Steve’s jaw tightens up. Bucky can almost hear his teeth grinding together. “Little hypocritical of you, Buck. Where are we going right now?”

                “That’s different,” Bucky says. “We have to do this. The world’s in danger. And we--”

                “What the internet said,” Steve says, which is a phrase that strikes horror into Bucky’s heart, “is that you’ve got some kind of alien of your own. Superman? And there’s a lady with a lasso, Wonder Woman. Or how about that one guy who moves real fast? Sounds to _me_ like--”

                “First of all,” Bucky says, “the Justice League is a bit banged up right now. And they’re not official. The Avengers Initiative is the government’s response to--”

                “Stark’s a civilian,” Steve says. “Try again.”

                “A civilian _contractor--_ ”

                “Contractors get paid,” Steve says. “What kind of paycheck is Stark drawing?”

                “What the _fuck_ is your problem with Tony?” Bucky says, and he forgets, in that moment, to keep his voice down. He says it loud enough that everyone on the plane startles, even Steve. “I was worried about telling you. About Tony, and Jason. I thought you were gonna have a problem with them because they’re men, not because--”

                “Why the hell would I---” Steve cuts himself off. His face falls for a second and then goes blank, wiped clean. “Oh,” he says, with a short nod. “You thought I didn’t know.”

                Bucky stares at him. He remembers being young and terrified of Steve finding out. He hadn’t wanted Steve to leave. He’d been afraid of what would happen to Steve, if Steve went off on his own, if Steve decided he didn’t want to be anywhere near Bucky ever again. He’d been afraid of what would happen to _him_ , if he lost the best friend he’d ever had to a thing he couldn’t control.

                “Steve,” Bucky says, slowly, trying to feel his way forward.

                “Forget it,” Steve says, chin lifting. He slips right into Captain America, right there, right as he’s sitting next to Bucky. His voice, which he’s been keeping carefully low, rises to match Bucky’s, at a volume that anyone on the jet’s going to overhear. “Let’s just get to the fight. It’s why I’m here.”

                “Steve,” Bucky says, because that’s _not_ why he’s here, and he doesn’t have to fight, and he can’t stand the way Steve said it, flat and uncomplaining, resigned.

                Something about the way he said it, something about the look on his face, like a pair of black holes are forming in the backs of his eyes, made _It’s why I’m here_ sound a hell of a lot like _Ready to comply._

                Up near the cockpit, Jason shifts around to stare. Tim’s watching, silent and assessing, eyes flicking between the two of them.

                “That’s not why you’re here,” Bucky says.

                Steve looks at him, expression sharp and bittersweet, smile like a mercy kill. “Buck,” he says, “if you wanted me at peace, you would’ve left me in the water.”

                Bucky closes his eyes, lets the hit land, tries to regroup.

                At the front of the jet, Jason starts to laugh. “Jesus Christ, Cap, you caught the wrong fucking flight if you want any points for the ‘I didn’t ask to be resurrected’ card. We’re overcrowded with that shit, Rogers. Pick a different gimmick. It looks better on me. And Bucky.”

                Jason stands up, swings toward them before Steve can reply. “Besides,” he adds, “we were looking for a skeleton Bucky could bury. We had no idea you were alive down there.”

                “If you didn’t want to fight,” Bucky says, now that he’s got his breath back, “you could’ve stayed on the helicarrier. You could’ve gone to Washington. SHIELD would’ve taken you anywhere you wanted to go. _I_ would have--”

                “You would’ve gone to New York,” Steve says. “And I’m going where you’re going.” He offers up that same hollow smile. “Til the end of the line, remember?”

                “Is that what you think this is?” Jason’s considering Steve carefully, head tipped, eyes thoughtful, and it hits Bucky suddenly that maybe he doesn’t know Steve as well as he thought. Maybe Jason’s caught something he missed. “You think we’re all gonna die today, Cap?”

                “Uh,” Bruce says, suddenly looking very interested. “Is this a suicide mission? I don’t really qualify for those. I told you earlier--”

                “I’d give you decent odds, Banner,” Steve says. “But I don’t know enough to say.”

                “Sure as hell talking a lot,” Jason drawls, “for someone who doesn’t know enough to say.”

                Steve looks up at Jason, and they share a look Bucky only gets pieces of. “I know this pattern,” Steve says. “I’ve seen it. Stark should’ve told that security team what they were risking by leaving. If they’d held it til we got there--”

                Bucky makes a low, frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “That security team wouldn’t’ve survived if they’d gone against Loki, and you _know_ that.”

                “You don’t win a war without causalities,” Steve says, tone somewhere between an apology and an accusation. “Sometimes one person dies so the whole team can live. Who do you think taught me about sacrifice? When you died, Peggy said that I needed to respect you enough to respect your choices. That’s a lesson Stark never learned. He’s--”

                “Jesus _Christ_ ,” Bucky says, “you gotta blame Tony for everything?”

                “I’m not blaming him,” Steve says, voice snapping, anger finally bleeding in. “But you need to stop coddling him. All of you. That’s his weak point, all that guilt he carries around. He can’t make decisions that put people at risk. Other than the four of you, he can’t respect anyone’s right to choose that risk for themselves.”

                Jason laughs again, soft and incredulous. “That’s really the part of his personality you have a problem with?” He’s grinning, but there’s a tension settling into his jaw that suggests they’re headed toward yet another fight.

                “It’s a liability,” Steve says, meeting his eyes without hesitation. “Yours is anger, his is guilt. It’s all over the files. He flinches every time. He’s a genius, he’s good at it, and he usually gets away with it. But sometimes trying to save everybody means you end up saving nobody.”

                “What are you talking about, Rogers?” Natasha’s turned around in the co-pilot seat. She’s frowning at Steve, looks like she’s doing arithmetic in her mind and coming up with numbers she doesn’t like.

                Steve pauses. His eyes flick to Jason and then back to Natasha. “If that security team had held the Tower until we got there, maybe we could’ve made sure Loki never opened the portal.”

                Jason huffs out an impatient breath, but there’s worry on his face, settling in a thin line between his eyebrows. “We’re gonna kill whatever comes through that portal. If Loki want to bring his friends to the party, we’ll kill them, too.”

                Steve rubs at his chest, the way he used to when he felt an asthma attack coming on. It’s an anxious tell. Bucky hasn’t seen it in decades, but he’d know it anywhere.

                 “If he opens that portal,” Steve says, “people are going to panic. Whatever it is, whatever’s coming for us, it’ll scare people. The World Security Council will panic. If they think we can’t control the threat, they’ll control it themselves.”

                Jason makes a soft, sudden noise of understanding, and Bucky looks to him, confused, unsettled. It feels wrong, that Jason knows what Steve’s scared of before he does.

                “Christ,” Jason says, “he thinks they’re gonna nuke New York.”

                It hits, suddenly, the pattern of Steve’s thinking, the questions Steve asked about how the war ended, the betrayed, wounded look that flashed across his face when he heard about the bombs that hit Japan. It resolves in his mind, the reason Steve’s been running at this like it’s Bucky hanging from a train all over again, like he thinks he has another chance at a catch he missed, like he thinks Tony pulling the security team was the equivalent of painting a bullseye right between Bucky’s eyes.

                “No one’s gonna nuke New York,” Bucky says.

                Steve looks over at him. Those black holes are back behind his eyes. It feels like Bucky’s looking straight through to the bottom of the ocean. “There are eight million people in New York these days, Buck. You really wanna gamble all those lives on a bunch of suits not panicking? I _know_ what happens when we fail.”

                “Stand down, Cap,” Jason says. “We don’t fail. This team doesn’t know what that is.”

                Steve frowns at Jason and then turns toward the back of the plane. “Dr. Banner,” he says, “what happens if a nuclear bomb detonates in Times Square?”

                Bruce clears his throats and looks like a kid called out in Chemistry class. “Uh,” he says. “I don’t like that question.”

                “Dr. Banner,” Steve repeats.

                “Well,” Banner says, “one million dead in the initial blast, minimum. Maybe up to two million more injured. Medical services are beyond compromised, of course, so you have higher than average fatality rates from injuries that wouldn’t usually be life-threatening. And then the fallout would--”

                “Okay,” Jason says, waving him off. “Thanks a lot, Eeyore. Bet you’re great at parties.”

                “Thank you, Dr. Banner,” Steve says. He looks back toward Bucky. “One million _minimum_. In five minutes. And in our whole war, we lost half that.”

                “It’s not going to happen, Steve,” Bucky says.

                “You think a twenty person security team sits heavy on his conscience? Or that doctor in the cave? How’s he gonna handle one million? You and me, Todd, Barton, Romanoff, Robin, we’re on the ground. We die in the blast. But Stark’s not on the field, so he survives. Maybe Thor and Banner make it out. But Stark’s whole team is dead. His whole team, all twenty people on that security team, and one million strangers. Minimum.”

                “No one,” Bucky says, “is going to nuke New York.”

                But they might.

                The plane falls into a silence. Up front, Tim leans into Clint, and they both stare resolutely ahead, their free hands knotted together. Natasha reaches for her phone, starts texting one-handed while she keeps her eyes on the panels in front of her. Thor turns to Bruce with a questioning look, and Bruce grimaces in a way that’s surprisingly eloquent.

                Bucky breathes in, and, beside him, Steve digs his palm into his chest, presses down hard like he’s got lungs that still need any kind of pep talk.

                Jason stands up, thumbs on his comm, and steps toward the back of the quinjet. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says, “come pick me up. This party sucks.”

 

 

 

                “They’re not gonna do it,” Bucky says. He’s crowded in the back of the quinjet, right up next to Jason, who’s waiting for the escort suit Tony sent to pick him up. “They won’t bomb one of the most densely populated cities on the planet.”

                “From his perspective,” Jason says, “they practically just did.”

                “No,” Bucky says. “I understand why _he’s_ worried about it. I don’t understand why _you’re_ worried about it.”

                “I’m not,” Jason says. He looks over at Bucky with a bright smile that’s only a little manic. “Christ, Bucky, we’re on our way to fight _space monsters_ led by a mind sorcerer wearing a goat tiara. Getting nuked is a shitty Earth problem. I’ve got space problems to worry about right now.”

                “Then why are you leaving?”

                Jason grimaces, jerks a thumb over his shoulder back toward Steve. “Cuz Spangles over there has a point. The only life Tony’s careless with is his own. If we let him hold that Tower by himself, he’s gonna do something stupid. If we put someone else in there with him, he’s gonna suddenly remember about safety. So I’ll go get him and meet you guys in the city.”

                “And I’m supposed to believe,” Bucky says, slowly, “that letting the two of you confront Loki alone is going to end well?”

                Jason goes still for a second and then turns to face Bucky. He smiles again, sweet and fond, sharp around the edges. “You think I forgot what after-battle sex is like with the two of you? I wouldn’t miss that for the whole Goddamn world.”

                “That might be what’s at stake,” Bucky says. “The whole Goddamn world.”

                Jason grins wider and then leans over and taps the button that opens the hatch behind them. He’s beautiful and windblown and fearless, and Bucky doesn’t want him to go. But he wants Tony and Jason together, if that’s a choice he gets to make.

                “You two _are_ the whole Goddamn world,” Jason says and then he tugs Bucky in, kisses him hard and fierce, leaves him breathless. “So take care of it,” he says, and then he jogs down the hatch, lets the escort suit close around him seconds before he drops.

                “What the hell was _that_?” Steve says, as he steps up next to Bucky, staring hard out at the sky as the hatch closes up.

                “A kiss, Steve,” Bucky says, helpfully. “I know it’s been awhile.”

                “Thanks,” Steve says, with a roll of his eyes. “I meant that suit that Todd just jumped into. It looked like the Iron Man suit. Lighter, though.”

                “It’s an escort suit. They’re for transport,” Bucky says, which is only partiality true. He and Jason don’t like to fight in the suits Tony built for them. It compromises Tony’s cover, and it limits their mobility. Anyway, even with Bucky’s enhanced reflexes, he’s never quite quick enough to pilot them as effortlessly as Tony does, and Jason has a bad habit of crashing straight into walls.

                “Huh,” Steve says, still staring as the hatch hums shut.

                It was a mistake, probably. It was a mistake to let Steve see that.

                Bucky doesn’t blame Jason for doing it, but he’s glad, selfishly but unrepentantly, that he’s not the one who made the call.

                “You can still sit this one out,” Bucky says, glancing over at Steve.

                “I’m with you,” Steve says. “Wherever you’re going.”

                “Could be going straight to hell.”

                It’s a joke. It’s a mean, cruel joke. He gets Steve back and then immediately gambles him. Steve, who’s been obsessively studying their files so he can be ready to fight. Steve, who’s so damn sure they’re about to get blown to pieces and still won’t leave Bucky’s side.

                Steve shrugs, shifts uncomfortably in his STRIKE uniform and then settles when his hand reaches back to brush his shield. “Fire’s better than water,” he says, looking lost for half a second and then snapping back in place. “Anyway, never got a chance to fight aliens before. I like trying new things.”

                “Pal,” Bucky says, with a sad smile of his own, “if we get out of this, there’s a whole world to show you.”

                Steve nods, slow and resolute, braced like the future is a weight he’s readying himself to shoulder. “Looking forward to it,” he says.

                Which is just as well, really. Because there’s no use looking backward. Not for either one of them, not anymore. There’s nothing left to see.


	14. Chapter 14

                Jason chats with JARVIS on his flight to the Tower, and JARVIS helpfully updates him on several interesting subjects. The Tower, he reports, was taken several minutes ago by Loki and Dr. Selvig. No lives were lost, but JARVIS didn’t manage to shut down the arc reactor before Selvig started up some kind of unholy device that is now perched, glowing ominously blue, on top of the Tower.

                JARVIS also informs Jason that Tony’s suit was considerably damaged in the helicarrier fight. Which is fine, apparently, because Tony’s plan is to upgrade to the Mark Seven.

                “I thought that Mark Seven wasn’t ready yet,” Jason says.

                JARVIS plays a clip of Tony’s voice saying, “Well, skip the disco lights, J. I’ve got a party, and it’s got a dress code. You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

                And then JARVIS explains that Tony is currently headed, alone, to the penthouse. Where Loki is waiting. With his scepter.

                “He’s exiting the suit, sir,” JARVIS adds.

                “He’s fucking _what_.” Jason kicks in the suit, flails against it. He loves watching Tony work in one of these things, but, in moments like this, it feels like a metal coffin around him. “J,” he says, “get me there as fast as possible.”

                JARVIS has opinions about subjecting humans to unnecessarily steep acceleration. He has, in the past, provided Jason with prolonged explanations of those opinions. The _one time_ Jason actually passed out in a suit, he’d bitched at Jason for two full hours.

                This time, JARVIS keeps his opinions to himself. There’s a swoop and a hum and a terrible, sick feeling in the pit of Jason’s stomach, and then he’s moving faster than he wants to think about.

                It doesn’t feel half fast enough.

 

 

 

                Jason doesn’t wait for JARVIS to open the penthouse door. He crashes in through a window, rolls through two separate armchairs, and springs to his feet in the middle of the cleared space between Loki, who’s prowling like a bored zoo tiger, and Tony, who’s blinking behind his bar.

                “Hey, honey,” Jason says, as his faceplate flips up, “I’m home.”

                 “I love when you make an entrance.” Tony holds up a decanter. “You want a drink?”

                Jason stares at him. “Do I want a—Jesus Christ. Are we pregaming the apocalypse?”

                Tony shrugs. He looks blissfully unconcerned, which is how he always looks when he’s panicking and trying to be impressive about it. “I prefer to think of it as the first toast to our inevitable stunning victory.”

                Loki laughs. “How very optimistic,” he says. “Are you always this delusional, or is this not your first drink?”

                Jason rolls his eyes so hard it almost hurts. “Okay,” he says, “settle down over there, asshole. No one in this room was talking to you.”

                When Jason glances his direction, Loki’s staring right at him with a smarmy, indulgent smile that begs for some baseball bat dental work. The condescension on his face settles everything.

                 “Yeah,” Jason says, stepping toward the bar. “Pour me a double.”

                Tony flips a pair of tumblers right-side up and pours a double for both of them. He waves the bottle at Loki. “Sure you don’t want one?”

                “Don’t give the terrorist the good whiskey,” Jason objects, horrified. “Listen,” he says, turning to Loki, “with all due respect to your deity status, if want you a drink, you can lick it off the floormats of a dive bar at 3am. Get fucked.”

                “You can’t stall me,” Loki tells them. “With threats or drinks or charm.”

                “Hear that, sweetheart?” Tony says, Bambi-blinking at Jason over the top of his tumbler as he tips it back. “He thinks we’re charming.”

                “We’re charming as hell,” Jason says, with certainty. “Even aliens notice. It’s your social skills, and my ass.” He hesitates, rethinks. “Wait. Maybe it’s also your ass. Maybe I’m a net drag on the team, charm-wise.”

                “Absolutely not,” Tony says. “Not with those thighs.”

                “If you’re quite done,” Loki says, evidently growing impatient.

                “I’m sorry,” Jason says, glancing back toward him. “Were you going to pretend to do something interesting? Would you like us to pay attention to you? Is that going to help soothe your tragic, wounded, sad little orphaned space-prince bullshit?”

                Loki’s jaw tightens. “I’d choose my words more carefully. You might come to regret them.”

                “The only thing I’m gonna regret,” Jason says, “is that I can only kill you once. So I’m gonna do my best to enjoy it for however long you manage to last.”

                Loki laughs again, but it’s harsher this time. Less distant imperturbable god, and more celestial toddler on the verge of a tantrum. “What do I have to fear?” he asks. “My army will be here soon. The Chitauri are nearly here.”

                “Great,” Jason says. “Maybe they’ll help take the edge off.”

                “We have our own army,” Tony adds, after a beat.

                “Yes,” Loki smiles, indulgent all over again. “I’ve met them.”

                “No,” Jason says. “You haven’t met us yet.”

                “We’ve got two super soldiers,” Tony offers, idly, between sips of his whiskey. “A living legend, and a ghost story.”

                “A sniper who never misses,” Jason adds. “An assassin who could disembowel you with your pointy hat before you noticed it was missing.”

                “A kid from Gotham who’s been fighting people like you since he was twelve.” Tony glances toward Jason, smiles soft and fond and entirely too sweet. “Another kid from Gotham, who got bored with death, came back with a bit of a temper.”

                Jason tips his head. “A futurist who built the suit that’s gonna butcher whatever shitty alien army you managed to find.”

                “Your brother,” Tony says, looking back to Loki.

                “Oh,” Jason says, as he takes another drink. “Also, a giant green rage monster.”

                “And _you_ ,” Tony says, turning toward Loki. “You managed to piss off all of us.”

                “I promised your brother,” Jason says, as he straightens up, stepping away from the bar, “that I’d leave enough of you to bury. But he’s not here. And, you know, historically, I’m not that great with promises.”

                Loki looks between them, raising his eyebrows. “Am I meant to be afraid?”

                Jason smirks. The faceplate on the escort suit drops to cover him. “If you were smart enough to be afraid right now, you would’ve been smart enough not to come here in the first place.”

                There’s moment of still calculation, and then Loki lunges for Tony, spear-first, and Jason’s heart seizes in his chest when the point of the spear thunks audibly against the arc reactor.

                Loki’s face falls in confusion. “What--”

                Jason throws the crystal tumbler right at Loki’s face, and it shatters against his cheek, opens cuts all over his face and splashes whiskey right into his eyes. Loki reels back, snarling, and Jason grins, feels something hungry and hateful rising up in his chest.

                “Oh, good,” he says. “You’re a bleeder. I always did love to make a mess.”

                And then Loki, because he’s an asshole, because he’s _smart_ , grabs Tony by the front of his shirt and hurls him straight out the window.

                “Oh, _fuck you_ ,” Jason says and takes off after Tony without a single second’s hesitation. He’ll have other chances to kill Loki, and he’d prefer to kill him with Tony still alive to help him celebrate afterward.

                He catches Tony fifty yards from the ground and sets him carefully on his feet.

                “That son of a bitch,” Tony says, with feeling. “He made me spill my drink.”

                He’s still holding the tumbler in his hand. Jason’s not sure if it’s the fall, or the rescue, or the way Tony looks, irritated but absolutely fearless, that makes him retract the faceplate just so he can kiss him, sweet and urgent, like he can kiss safety right into him.

                The sound of crystal shattering against the sidewalk makes him pull back to stare up at the sky, where a column of blue light is punching a hole through the clouds.

                “Aw, shit,” Jason says, still staring.

                “Time to go to work,” Tony says. He pulls away from Jason, ducking back toward the Tower, and Jason watches as a growing swarm of aliens comes pouring out into the world like blood from an open wound.

                _Fuck_ , he thinks. Just once, but very clearly.

                And then, _The solution is to murder the fuck out of the problem._

                “JARVIS,” he says, “take me up.”

                Jason’s never been a particularly good pilot. Bucky’s decent, and Clint can flip around in his suit like an Olympic gymnast on a cardiovascular-threatening amount of methamphetamine, but Jason generally lets JARVIS handle the actual piloting of the suit, when he wears one. It tends to minimize property damage.

                “Sir,” JARVIS says, alarm evident in his tone.

                “Take me up,” Jason says, dropping the faceplate. “Or, so help me God, I will do it myself.”

                JARVIS takes him up, straight toward the heart of the swarm, and Jason damn near gets blasted apart by the alien weapons immediately. He swoops between them, testing their maneuverability, checking to see how well they handle missiles and bullets and repulsor blasts to the face.

                “Hey, J,” Jason says, “these guys are real flammable.”

                “Yes, sir,” JARVIS says. He sounds distant, probably because he’s computing his way through a highly acrobatic flight pattern that’s leaving Jason feeling like he’s stuck on the world’s most brutal rollercoaster.

                They are not especially sturdy aliens. Jason takes the head clean off one with a well-timed swing of the suit’s boot. But it doesn’t seem to matter how many he kills, because there are more behind them. He catches a glimpse through the portal, and some small part of him curls up like a kid under bedsheets, goes icy cold with horror at the sheer number of them, just waiting.

                “Hey, J,” he says, a little breathless. “Can you count them?”

                “Please move away from the portal, sir,” JARVIS says. “This is not a safe position.”

                Jason pulls back, taking hits from the Chitauri weapons, and JARVIS helpfully puts a damage percentage display in the upper right corner of the video feed. A moment later, the percentage is replaced with a _How many more hits you can take_ counter that ticks down by the second.

                “Thanks for dumbing it down for me, J,” he says.

                “I know you prefer more practical data points, sir,” JARVIS tells him. “May I recommend regrouping on the ground before Mr. Stark decides to join you up here?”

                “He all suited up?” Jason asks. He’s pushed back by the wave of Chitauri. He can’t even track them all anymore. They’re surrounding him. “Goddamn, J, this is exactly like _Space Invaders_. This shit is anxiety-inducing. I’m gonna get Phil’s high blood pressure.”

                “Yes, sir, I see the resemblance,” JARVIS says, and he sounds long-suffering, but, when one of Jason’s repulsor beams obliterates a Chitauri flyer, JARVIS plays the beep and crash sounds from the video game.

                “Thanks, J,” Jason says. He laughs, and it’s a little hysterical, but no one’s around to hear it.

                He realizes, suddenly, that he is up here, all alone, facing down hundreds of aliens. He doesn’t even know where his team is.

                A Chitauri slams into him, knocks him back, and it feels nothing like a tire iron smashing into him, except, somehow, it does. And he’s the only one laughing, but it gets stuck in his head, mutates, and suddenly he’s alone and small, overwhelmed and outmaneuvered, and he’s taking hit after hit, waiting for someone who isn’t coming, while the Joker laughs.

                “Sir,” JARVIS says. “Your heartrate---”

                Every Chitauri around him erupts suddenly in a series of explosions, and Tony, in the Mark Seven, swoops in and shields Jason. “You fucked up that suit in _six minutes_ ,” Tony says, through the comms. “Get to ground before you fall there.”

                “I love you,” Jason says, because it’s always true but is deeply and uniquely true in this exact moment.

                “I love you, too, you fucking lunatic, now _fall back_. We gotta meet up with the others, figure out how we’re gonna play this.”

                Jason turns to see New York under attack. It doesn’t seem to matter how many Chitauri he killed. There are hundreds loose in the streets. The closer the gets to the ground, the more screams he hears.

                It’s not enough. _They_ are not enough.  

                _That’s bullshit_ , he thinks. _This team doesn’t fail._

                “Oh, good. The party’s already started,” Clint says, voice breaking over the comms.

                “I don’t see how this is a party,” Natasha says.

                “What’re you talking about?” Clint sounds bemused. “Look at all the fireworks.”

                “It would be nice,” Natasha says, “if we had a clear path for landing. Don’t suppose you gentlemen could help us out?”

                JARVIS locks onto the quinjet, and Jason barrels toward it, knocking Chitauri out of the way. Tony settles in beside him, and he’s a thing of beauty in that suit, shoots a dozen aliens out of the sky for every two or three Jason bodily tackles into pieces. Jason’s clumsy in these things, always has been. He needs the feedback that Tony won’t patch in, needs to feel the ache of bloody knuckles so he knows how hard to throw a punch.

                Together, they clear a route for the jet, and Clint manages an only slightly rougher-than-normal landing right in the middle of the street. Jason drops to the ground and then shoves and kicks his way out of the suit as JARVIS very patiently peels it back. Without the filtering barrier of the suit, the full impression of the battle finally settles in.

                All around him, people are screaming. He can smell ash and gasoline and blood, dust from buildings that have already started to crash apart. The ground shakes in fits below him, shivering like something sick, as the Chitauri make impact after impact.

                This is chaos. This is full, uncontained chaos.

                His team streams out of the jet, and Jason catches the grim assessment passing between all of them.

                They aren’t going to be enough. Not this time. This team doesn’t fail, but they don’t always win, either. He gets Steve, for some reason, in his head: _Who do you think taught me about sacrifice?_

                He swallows. “Everybody suited up?” he asks. “Don’t know if you noticed, but we have a bit of a situation.”

                Thor swings the hammer one-handed, warming up. There’s a haunted look in his eyes as he stares up at the sky, a kind of regret that seems to weigh heavy. Beside him, Banner is standing perfectly still, eyes flicking wildly from one direction to another. _Tracking screams_ , Jason realizes. Slowly, the skin on his neck is turning green.

                Steve is standing, feet apart, shoulders braced, turning in a slow circle as he clocks everything. Bucky’s hovering between Steve and Jason, metal arm up, eyes wide and dark, mouth set in a flat line.

                Natasha and Clint are standing shoulder-to-shoulder, with Tim half-crouched a little distance away, frowning in confusion, head tipped like he’s listening to something.

                “Robin,” Jason says, focusing on him. “What is it?”

                “This is bad,” Banner says, softly. “This is very, very bad.”

                “Any idea how many there are?” Bucky says, staring up at the sky.

                “Didn’t see an end to them,” Tony reports.

                Above them, something huge and terrible breaks through the portal. It looks like the aftereffect of a blue whale having a regrettable evening with a tank. It’s almost too big to believe, and it’s swimming through the air, coming straight for them.

                “This,” Natasha says, “is exactly like Budapest.”

                “ _Robin_ ,” Jason repeats, because there are people dying, and aliens flying through the streets, and he needs to make some kind of call, but he wants information first. “What is it?”

                Tim looks up at him. There’s a weird look on his face, relief twisted up with worry. “Hold position,” he reports. “We’ve got reinforcements.”

                “We’ve got _what_?” Jason says.

                “Reinforcements,” Tim repeats. “Sixty seconds out.”

                “Well,” Tony says, “let’s put out the welcome mat.”

                He takes to the sky, and Thor follows. Jason and the others turn on the encroaching Chitauri with a single-minded ferocity that Jason hopes will teach these assholes exactly why Earth is a terrible tourist destination.

                Sixty seconds later, the Batjet lands neatly beside the quinjet.

                “No fucking way,” Jason says, staring.

                Nightwing climbs out first, strolling out into the ruined streets like he’s at a garden party. Sam and Riley emerge next, wings unfurling as soon as they have the space. They beeline for Natasha, who beams at them with the sort of feral, toothy grin that can clear a SHIELD bar in thirty seconds. James Rhodes follows them, looking serious and focused and not even the slightest bit scared.

                “ _Rhodey_?” Tony says, swooping in.

                “Hey,” Rhodes says. “Can I borrow a suit?”

                “Borrow my whole arsenal, Rhodey-bear,” Tony says. “I can’t believe you came to our surprise party.”

                “Does the Air Force know you’re here?” Natasha asks.

                “We got kidnapped by Batman,” Riley says, visibly thrilled. “We are officially the coolest people anyone’s ever heard of.”

                And then Bruce Wayne himself walks out of the jet, wearing the Batsuit, looking like someone’s nightmare. Jason understands the ripped-in-half look on Tim’s face from before.

                It’s good that they’re here. These five are a hell of a reinforcement crew. But Jason knows what this is. He knows what the odds are. There’s a good chance that every single one of them is wearing their funeral suit.

                Jason would’ve spared them, if he could. But they made their own choices.

                “Hey, old man,” Jason says. “Thought you’d skipped out.”

                “Phil asked for a favor,” Bruce tells him. “Or I never would have left.”

                “Hey,” Nightwing says, “hi. You look familiar.” He’s unnecessarily close to Steve Rogers, peering inquisitively at his face.

                “Steve Rogers,” Steve says, holding his hand out.

                “Well, fuck _me_ ,” Nightwing says, which earns him a wide-eyed double-take and a blush that hits Steve’s face so fast and hard that Jason’s a little worried he’s going to pass out.

                “Okay, keep it PG, asshole,” Jason says. “He has a delicate constitution.”

                “Um,” Banner says, staring up. “I think that thing’s going to eat the Empire State Building.”

                They all fall silent as they turn to watch the leviathan casually knock the top three stories off a building in the distance. Up in the sky, a second one starts to break through.

                “Oracle and JARIVS will run communications,” Bruce says, all business as he steps up next to Jason.

                “We need to get these people off the streets,” Steve says, breaking away from Grayson to move up on Jason’s other side.

                Jason’s still for a second, waiting for Coulson’s orders, and then he remembers that they aren’t coming.

                No one’s in charge.

                “Nat,” he says, after a second, “what’ve you got for me?”

                “Loki’s a coward,” Natasha says, without hesitation. “And he’s scared of this team. He’ll keep the army here until we’re all dead, and then he’ll kill his way to the next group that poses a threat.”

                Which means civilian causalities will be high, but also highly localized.

                “Clint,” Jason says.

                “They can’t bank worth a damn,” Clint says, staring up. “Run them around a tight corner, and they’ll crash straight into a building.” He hesitates for a second and then adds, “They swarm like bees. Might be some kind of hive mind.”

                “Tony?” Jason asks, tipping his head toward the Iron Man suit.

                The Iron Man suit looks up, tracks the aliens above them. “Not very smart,” he says, “not a lot of body armor. They’re drones. They rely on numbers. Don’t get surrounded.”

                Jason nods. “Buck?”

                Bucky meets his gaze, eyes gone Winter Soldier focused. “We need to close the portal,” he says. “Can’t win this until we cut off the supply line.”

                Jason’s silent for a second and then looks to his right. “Rogers,” Jason says, “you got anything?”

                Steve blinks. His eyes go blank for a second and then sharpen. “People are gonna run right out of those buildings, straight into the line of fire. We need to move them into the basements or out through the subway. Make a perimeter and hold it, let them get somewhere safe.”

                Jason looks to his left. “Bats,” he says. “Anything else?”

                “He’s the god of trickery,” Bruce says. “This whole thing is a game. He’s maximizing causalities to keep us on the defensive and away from the Tesseract.”

                “Right,” Jason says, because he knows that trick, too. They learned it from the same madman. “Set the nursing home on fire so the cops are busy while you rob the bank.”

                “Holy shit,” Sam says, appalled. “That’s some serious Gotham bullshit.”

                Jason looks over his shoulder, considers Thor. “Any additional insights?”

                Thor frowns, eyes still locked on the mass of aliens crowding through the portal. “I do not know where my brother found this army,” he says. “He is clever, my brother, but this was done too quickly. This is someone else’s army, and someone else sent them.”

                Which means there might be another puppet-master behind all of this. Which means, _maybe_ , it would be counterproductive to kill the only one who could tell them about a greater threat.

                “Alright,” Jason says, as it all shifts and settles in his head. He tries to think of what Coulson would do. He tries to be as ruthlessly practical as Coulson would be. It’s one thing to know how competent his team is, how good they are at the work they do, and it’s another thing entirely to send them to do that work and take responsibility for the consequences.

                All around them, the city is screaming.

                 “Okay,” Jason says, because he has to. Because it has to be done, and no one is going to do it for him. “Cap, Nightwing, you’ve got the PR faces. Go play Rescue Heroes, get the civilians safe. Find the cops and make them useful. Get everybody who can’t fight the hell out of here. Sam and Riley, same play, just a little higher up. Find everyone trapped in the upper stories, and get them on the ground.”

                “Fly away home,” Riley says, wings stretching, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Got it.”

                He and Sam are gone a second later, winging and rolling through the sky, shooting down aliens with their submachine guns as they head toward a burning building two blocks up.

                Steve and Grayson peel off immediately after, hurling themselves over cars and trashing Chitauri on the way, and Jason wonders, as he watches them go, if they’re intentionally showing off or if they really just don’t know a more casual, pedestrian way of running up a street.

                “Barton,” Jason says, “we need eyes up high. Tell us what we’re dealing with. Robin, you’re with him. Watch his back. If you get into trouble, have Sam and Riley fly you out.”

                He turns to Tony, waiting in the Iron Man suit. “Iron Man, get Barton and Robin in position, and get Rhodes into a suit. Get JARVIS piloting as many of the escort suits as he can manage. We’re gonna make a perimeter, and the suits are gonna hold it. You and Rhodes stay close. We’ll need to pull one of you if we get deep into science shit.”

                Tony nods. “Get to the Tower,” he tells Rhodes. “I’ve got your suit downstairs.” He moves toward Clint and Tim. “Hold tight,” he advises. “I don’t usually move two at once.” They fly off a second later, rocketing straight up.

                “Science shit,” Banner says, sounding vaguely optimistic.

                “Absolutely not, Doc,” Jason says, turning toward him. “You’re our battering ram. Start knocking on doors. Get real mad about something, and do it right now.”

                Banner tips his head back, takes in the destruction around him. “Yeah,” he says, as his skin floods green. “I can do that.”

                “Thor,” Jason says, “those things look half robot, and robots don’t like lightening. So get to the portal and bottleneck it, try to slow them down. Go full Thunder Barbie on them, okay?”

                Thor swings his hammer, frowning. “I still do not believe,” he says, “that ‘Thunder Barbie’ is an entirely complimentary way to address me.”

                “Well get up there and sell it,” Jason says. “By Christmas this year, if Earth’s not on fire, you’ll be giftwrapped in a thousand stockings.”

                “That does not sound pleasant,” Thor says, still sounding dubious.

                “Jesus,” Jason says, “we’ll watch _A Christmas Story_ later. Go fuck shit up.”

                _That_ , at least, does not seem to require any kind of translation. Thor’s off a heartbeat later, and the Hulk roars as he charges up the street, grabs a Chitauri out of the air and crunches it to pieces between his hands.

                Jason looks at the rest: Bucky, and Batman, and Natasha. He knows all their vulnerabilities. He knows exactly how each one of them is most likely to die.

                He knows, also, that it’s their choice to fight, and they’ve already made it. So it’s not his job to protect them. It’s his job not to waste them.

                “Alright,” he says, as lightning cracks above them and the Hulk rips the jaw right off a leviathan and a dozen empty suits rise out of Stark Tower. “Let’s go figure out how to shut down this portal.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a day late! I caught some kind of death plague, and I was pretty useless all weekend, but I feel better now. 
> 
> As recompense, you're getting an epilogue! So there will now be seventeen chapters. This chapter is also about a thousand words longer than most of the others, so there is also that small bonus.

                Things devolve into chaos with a predictable quickness. Oracle and JARVIS coordinate and confer, filtering through the flood of information and passing along updates as needed. Jason gets everything, every update from every fighter, and he understands now why Coulson rarely does fieldwork while he’s playing handler.

                It’s difficult to fight and strategize all at once. It’s hard to worry about the punch coming directly at his face while also trying to calculate how to deploy Riley and Sam in a way that’s going to maximize the lives they save.

                “Jason,” Nat says, as she snaps an alien’s neck with her hands and slides into a crouch beside him to reload her guns. “None of this is going to matter if we don’t close that portal.”

                “Yeah,” Jason says. “Tony already tried blowing it up. Didn’t work.”

                She looks up at him, eyebrows raised, hands never faltering as she rushes through reloading. “I know you and Tony struggle with this, but it’s not always about blowing things up.”

                Jason snorts and throws an alien straight to Bucky, who grabs it midair and swings into the momentum, sends the bastard flipping into the air, where it knocks one of the fliers straight into a building.

                Beside them, Batman’s taking out four at once, because he’s a showoff and a thrill-seeker, whatever his vocal opinions to the contrary.

                “What’re you gonna do, Nat?” Jason asks. “Stab it to death? Ask it real nice to cut it out?”

                “Selvig is up there. If anyone knows how to shut it off, it’s him.” She checks her knives and then climbs to her feet. “Guess I could start by asking nice.”

                “Christ,” Jason says. And then, “JARVIS, get Nat a lift, yeah?”

                “Yes, sir,” JARVIS says and then, a second later, “Mr. Wilson, if you wouldn’t mind?”

                “On my way,” Sam reports.

                Bucky and Bruce are bashing their way through another cadre of aliens. Jason assesses them, figures they’re fine, and then covers Nat while she climbs to the top of the nearest building, flipping herself up the fire escape with a finesse that is, objectively, obnoxious. JARVIS feeds ETA updates until Sam’s close enough that Natasha sprints the length of the roof and then throws herself into the open air; Sam catches her a second later and takes off toward the Tower.

                A leviathan turns their way, swinging suddenly toward the pair of them. Sam and Natasha are hanging helpless in the air, with Sam effectively disarmed by the hold he’s got on Natasha and Nat caught at a bad angle, trying to work her way to her guns.

                “Hey, sweetheart,” Riley says, dropping into the open space in front of the leviathan’s head. “Looking for a snack?”

                The aliens swarming over the side of the leviathan open fire, and Riley ducks, drops just below the leviathan’s jaw where he’s covered from every threat that isn’t getting eaten alive by a gigantic space monster.

                “Riley,” Jason says, exasperated, “get the fuck away from that thing’s mouth, what the _fuck_.”

                “How is it even airborne?” Riley asks, like that’s really the relevant question when it’s snapping teeth the size of his torso inches away from his limbs. “Hey, Stark, can you build me a flying whale suit? I wanna do some Disney bullshit.”

                “Hey, Riley,” Tony answers back, “forget Disney. You ever heard of Jonah and the whale?”

                Riley laughs over the comm. “You fucking madman,” he says, wrapping his wings around himself and dropping suddenly, leading the leviathan right toward the Iron Man suit. “Get Biblical.”

                “Absolutely fucking _not_ ,” Jason says, but Tony does it anyway.

                The suit flies straight into the leviathan’s open mouth, and there’s a long, terrible second where nothing happens. And then the suit breaks through the leviathan from the inside, trailing explosives that fall back into the wound and detonate seconds later.

                The monster roars a sound that shakes the buildings, and then it falls, in pieces, to the ground.

                The bulk of it drops straight for Jason, Bruce, and Bucky, and Jason, who was halfway to reuniting with the others, gets separated all over again and then thrown bodily through a fence when the thing’s head crashes into the truck he’s standing on and catapults him through the air like an unfortunate child on the wrong end of the seesaw.

                He lands on an unwelcoming heap of debris that used to be a brick wall.

                 “Goddamn it,” Jason says, a few moments later, catching his breath and rolling to his feet.

                “Incoming,” Tony says, sounding a little contrite.

                “It’s in my hair,” Jason says, staring down at the ichor coating him. “It’s on my body armor. It is _in my shoes_.”

                “That’s the thing about Red Hood,” Dick says, with the insufferable whimsy of a man who was safely outside the splash zone when the celestial blue whale hit the pavement. “He’s got no work ethic. Here we are, fighting to save the world, and he’s having a wet t-shirt contest.”

                “I am _winning_ a wet t-shirt contest, you son of a bitch,” Jason snaps back.

                “Oh, I don’t know,” Bucky says, “I’m a pretty strong contender right now.”

                “I’m _sorry_ ,” Tony says, again, sounding less and less contrite as the seconds tick by. “I am so very sorry for murdering a monster that was about to eat Riley.”

                “I’m gonna send you flowers,” Riley promises, flashing his wings toward Tony as he swoops near the suit. “A dozen roses, every day.”

                “Hey,” Sam says.

                “ _Hey_ ,” Jason says, a second later.

                “Gentlemen,” Natasha says, “not the time.”

                “So _this_ is what it’s like to work with professionals,” Tim says.

                “I like it,” Dick says, with conviction. “I’m having a great time. You should invite me to more parties, Red.”

                Jason brushes more ichor off of himself and rolls his eyes. “Why, so you can embarrass me in front of my friends and play grab-ass with a national icon?”

                “If we could focus,” Bruce says, with that implacable pragmatism Jason hasn’t missed at all.

                “Status report,” Jason says, trying to reorient toward Bruce and Bucky.

                “Route cleared to 39th,” Steve reports. “Officers stationed in second-story windows, watching the street. We’ve got the civilians moving toward the perimeter.”

                “We’re headed back your way,” Dick adds.

                “We’re running out of suits in the air,” Tony says. “We’ve got War Machine and Iron Man and one Mark Five running at 35%.”

                “Hulk’s street-cleaning a block east of you, Jay,” Clint says. “Thor’s still trying to hold a chokepoint at the portal, but it might be time to call him back.”

                “No need. I am fine,” Thor says. It’s the first time Jason’s heard him sound anything close to winded.

                “Yeah, great,” Jason says. “Come be fine down here for a second. Help Hulk clear the street.”

                Thor doesn’t answer, but, when Jason directs his eyes to the sky, he sees Thor falling back.

                “I’m still clearing buildings,” Riley says. “Sam, you ever coming back to work?”

                “Sure,” Sam says. “As soon as Widow and I finish saving the whole damn world.”

                Jason’s working his way to some kind of plan, still trying to get back to Bruce and Bucky, when he rounds a corner and finds himself confronted by a herd of aliens. They chatter at him, and one of them lowers its weapon to point directly at his chest.

                “Aw, shit,” Jason says, lunging behind the nearest car as he reloads.

                “You alright?” Bucky asks immediately.

                 “Where are you?” Tony asks, a second later.

                “I’m not trying to make you guys jealous,” Jason says, “but these aliens just threw me a surprise party.”

                He’s still crouched, almost ready to get back into the fight, when a dark-haired woman steps out of the closest building, wearing a leather jacket and an expression like she’s coming out to yell at kids for pissing on her lawn.

                “ _Hey_ ,” she says, scowling at the pack of aliens. “Assholes. You gotta be so fucking loud? People _sleep_.”

                Jason stares. “Jesus Christ, lady,” he says, begrudgingly awed, “get back inside.”

                She shoots him a flat, unimpressed glare. “ _You_ get inside, asshole.”

                Jason gets his feet underneath him and resigns himself to playing hero for the least appreciative woman in New York, and then, without any hint of strain, she picks up a crash-landed alien craft and hurls it through the air, scattering the warriors like empty beer cans.

                “Holy shit, never mind,” Jason says. “Welcome to the fight. Stay hydrated. Have fun.”

                She looks around, eyes narrowed as she takes in the destruction. “This is such bullshit,” she announces. “Is this your bullshit? It’s all over my street.”

                Jason jerks his chin toward the hole in the sky. “It’s their bullshit. They brought it down here. We didn’t even invite them.”

                She frowns and starts patting down the pockets of her jacket. “Fucking unbelievable,” she mutters.

                One of the aliens from the pack struggles free from the wreckage of its comrades and takes a single menacing step their direction. Jason watches with growing admiration as the woman scoops a brick off the ground and throws it. The alien catches the brick with its face, topples over again, and does not get back up.

                “Hey,” he says, “are you an Amazon?”

                “I’m fucking _pissed_ ,” she says, as she lights a cigarette.

                “Yeah.” He nods. “I’m getting that part.”

                She leans over, cigarette tucked into one corner of her mouth, and wrenches a section of rebar out of the exposed wall beside her. She tests the weight, swings it once, and then stalks up the street toward another group of aliens.

                “Hey, do you need a job?” Jason yells at her back. “You gotta meet my buddy Phil.”

                She flips him off without looking, and Jason watches just long enough to see her take an alien’s head off with a single swing of her improvised melee weapon before he decides she’s probably fine unsupervised.

                “Hey, Cap,” Clint says, “why are there so many civilians in the street?”

                “They wanted to fight,” Steve says. “This is New York.”

                “They almost fought _him_ ,” Dick says, sounding thrilled.

                “Okay,” Riley says, “so you two gave the blind guy an ass pat, and a ‘good game,’ and just sent him out here?”

                There’s a brief silence over the comms. “Blind guy?” Dick asks. “We didn’t see any blind guys. Does he need help?”

                “Absolutely not,” Riley says. “That is absolutely not what he needs. He needs a marriage proposal, holy _shit_. Who here is single? Colonel Rhodes, how do you feel about extremely acrobatic brunettes?”

                “Riley,” Sam says, “remember how you promised to stop matchmaking in the middle of fights?”

                “Yeah, I hear you,” Riley says. “I really do. And I’m working on that. But you should know that this guy can bend in, like. Every conceivable direction. Hey, Batman, you want a date?”

                Jason’s lungs seize in his chest and then he’s laughing, hand braced against the nearest truck, watching Thor and Hulk wreck their way through a whole battalion up the block. Bucky and Bruce emerge from a side-alley, looking dusty and ichor-splattered but otherwise fine, and there’s an expression on Bruce’s face that Jason hasn’t seen since back when he wore the Robin uniform, a kind of reluctant amusement that Bruce seems thoroughly annoyed by.

                “Jason,” Barbara says, sudden and serious as a suckerpunch to the back of the head. “There’s a missile headed for New York.”

                “What,” Jason says.

                “Todd,” Fury says, a second later, “there’s a jet headed your way.”

                Jason’s eyes meet Bucky’s, and he can tell by the vague confusion on Bucky’s face that he’s the only one hearing this conversation. “How long?” he asks.

                “Three minutes,” Barbara says. “I’m trying to turn it around but--”

                “It won’t work,” Fury says. “It’s one of ours.”

                “It’s one of _ours_?” Jason looks skyward, eyes already scanning for a thing he knows he won’t see until it’s entirely too late.

                “The World Security Council,” Fury says.

                Jason hears Bruce Banner, reluctant and uncomfortable, but confident, certain, _One million dead in the initial blast, minimum. Maybe up to two million more injured. Medical services are beyond compromised, of course, so you have higher than average fatality rates from injuries that wouldn’t usually be life-threatening. And then the fallout---_

                And then Steve, _People shouldn’t have weapons like this, because they’ll use them._

                Bucky: _No one is going to nuke New York_

But they are. That’s the plan. And Jason brought his team here.

                In three minutes, everyone is going to be dead.

                “Tony,” he says, “you still have that Mark Five?”

                “Barely,” Tony says. “You need a lift?”

                “They’re sending a nuke,” Jason says. “Tony, get that Mark Five up there, send the missile through the portal. Nat, I need that portal closed in three minutes.”

                “Jesus Christ,” Tony says. For a second, there’s nothing in his voice except a faint echo of horror. And then he clears his throat. “On it,” he says, sounding like nothing at all.

                “Okay,” Jason says. “Riley, Sam, Thor, Rhodey, Tony, get everyone out of here. I need—who’s--”

                He falters, because he doesn’t have enough fliers. There are fourteen people in this fight, and he’s only got five who can fly. If Riley and Sam take Clint and Tim, if Thor and Rhodey take Dick and Bruce, if Tony takes Bucky, that still leaves four on the ground.

                Nat has to stay; she’s his guard on the wall. He needs her to drop the door before the threat can break through, and that means she’s here til the end.

                There’s a chance that the Hulk will survive, and, anyway, no one around is strong enough to fly him out of here.

                But that still leaves Jason and Steve behind.

                “Hey, Cap,” he says, “you’re not all that attached to your second round, right?”

                “Oh,” Steve says, as he and Dick jog up the street, with Thor and Hulk falling in behind them. For a second, his smile twists almost sad, and then he shrugs. “Not too attached. Party’s been fun, but I’m ready to go home.”

                “What the fuck,” Bucky says, low and dangerous, “are you thinking, Jason?”

                “Riley, Sam,” Jason says, “get Clint and Tim out of here. As far as you can, got it? Thor, Rhodey, you get Nightwing and Batman. Tony,” he says, and his voice does something weird, curls up tight and kicks in his throat. He swallows it back down. “Tony, you gotta come get Buck. He’s about to throw a fit.”

                “Oh, he doesn’t know the half of it,” Tony says, with a soft, fond laugh. “Don’t fight the suit, Bucky-bear. It doesn’t have much fight left.”

                “I will not leave you,” Thor says, brow furrowing up. “Is this the custom on Earth? On Asgard, we do not leave our friends to die.”

                “It’s called a tactical retreat, you judgmental tourist,” Jason says. “And if the plan works, no one’s gonna die. This is a precaution.”

                “It’s a shit plan,” Bucky says, getting loud as he stomps his way toward Jason. “Iron Man can carry us both. War Machine’ll grab Steve _and_ Batman. This is fucking—no one is getting left behind.”

                “Two minutes,” Barbara announces, and Jason can tell from the expressions around him that, this time, everyone hears her.

                “Get _out_ ,” Jason says. “Get the fuck out of here. All of you. What’re you---”

                “Oh, hey,” Clint says, as Sam safely deposits him on the ground next to Nightwing. “Were you trying to kick us out?”

                “Sorry,” Riley says, dropping Tim next to Clint. “We got real lost. Which direction is _away_ , again?”

                Jason takes a breath to start yelling some really motivational obscenities and then the Mark Five, banged up and smoking ever so slightly from its left shoulder, lands in front of Bucky.

                It’s the wrong Goddamn suit.

                It’s the _wrong suit_.

                “Tony,” Jason says, on an exhale that feels punched out of him. He knows immediately what’s happened. “Tony, for fuck’s sake, what the hell are you _doing_? You were supposed to send the Mark Five after the nuke. What the fuck is---”

                “The Mark Five doesn’t have the juice for it,” Tony says. He’s locked down communication. This is just for Jason. And, judging from the blankness spreading over his face, for Bucky, too. “We’d lose contact the second we sent it through the portal. That nuke could come right back on us.”

                Jason breathes in. He tries to reorient, get his brain moving again, but it’s stuck in freefall, spitting up question marks and fear.

                “I’m sorry,” Tony says, the first crack of emotion in his otherwise almost mechanical tone. “I’m sorry. The Mark Five doesn’t have the power to carry both of you. It’s gonna have to be just one.”

                “I’ll stay,” Jason says, automatically. And then, immediately, “Jesus, Tony, don’t go.”

                “It has to be done,” Tony says. “I’m doing it.”

                “Sixty seconds,” Barbara reports.

                “I’ve got it, Gordan,” Tony tells her. “Look after them for me, yeah? Sorry I won’t be around to hack your shit anymore.”

                “No,” Jason says. He’s got a whole team to protect, and he can’t stop staring at the suit in the sky. He needs to get everyone out of here. He needs to quarantine the part of him that’s on fire, or it’ll spread.

                Minimize harm. Save who you can.

                He _knows_ that.

                “I’ve got the portal,” Nat says. “As soon as the missile’s through, I’ll--”

                “You will fucking _not_ ,” Jason says. His tone’s wrong. He hasn’t talked to Natasha like that since they brought her into SHIELD. “Do _not_ close it. Don’t fucking--”

                “Gotta,” Tony says. “Gotta close it, Jason, c’mon. You know that. This suit’s almost out, too. I can get it through, but I don’t know what’s on the other side. This is not a round of hot potato that we can afford to lose.”

                “You are not a potato, you asshole,” Jason says.

                “I know that,” Tony says. Jason can _see_ him. He can see him, flying away from him. He can watch him, missile over his back, rocketing straight toward a hole in the sky that Jason can’t climb through.

                “Hey,” Tony says, softer. “I’m sorry. I have to do this.”

                Jason looks to Bucky, who’s frozen beside Bruce, eyes blank, face pale. “Don’t,” Jason says, although he can hear, in his own voice, that it’s a plea, not an order.

                It’s the right call. It’s the only call.

                “Thirty seconds,” Barbara says. It sounds like an apology.

                “He’s in there, isn’t he?” And that’s Steve Rogers, staring hard at the sky, some kind of grim, familiar resignation settling over his face like it lives there.

                “ _Tony_ ,” Rhodey’s shouting over the comms, finally realizing what’s happening. “Get the fuck down from there.”

                “Who’s in--- holy _shit_.” Riley gapes above them. “Tony Stark is _in_ that thing?”

                Jason tracks Tony’s progress. Every second, he gets farther away.

                “I love you,” Jason says, because he has to. Because it’s all that’s in his head, except for every ugly thing he’s trying not to think about.

                “Love you,” Tony says. He doesn’t sound scared at all. “You too, Buck.”

                Bucky doesn’t say anything. Jason figures he’s blanked out, the way he gets when something hurts him in a way that reminds him too much of HYDRA.

                Jason keeps staring up. He doesn’t want to miss this. He doesn’t want to miss the last chance he gets to see him.

                He’s aware, distantly, that Sam, Bruce, Dick, Thor, and Hulk are holding off the aliens while everyone else stares up.

                He gets a flash of metal in his peripheral vision as Riley takes to the sky, wings beating hard, flying straight for the portal like he thinks there’s anything he can do.

                For a second, Tony’s still here, on this planet, guiding the missile, and then he’s through the portal, and he’s gone.

                “Three seconds,” Barbara says.

                “No,” Bucky says, quiet but very clear.

                Jason counts back _two_ and then _one_ , and, all around him, the Chitauri crumple like puppets with cut strings.

                The leviathans fall out of the sky, but Tony does not.

                The sky clears out until it’s empty, except for Riley, still rising toward the portal.

                “Close it?” Nat asks.

                Jason opens his mouth to say _Yes_ , but his lungs stage some kind of revolt, and he doesn’t have any air, can’t say a Goddamn thing.

                He’s not a physicist. He doesn’t know the risks. If Banner were in his person-suit, he’d ask him how much radiation he’s risking with every millisecond he keeps that portal open, how many children he’s poisoning, how many people are going to die for that chance that Tony lives.

                “If you need,” Steve offers, “I can call it.”

                Jason looks at him. “If I need _what_?”

                “If you need,” Steve says, “for it to not be you.”

                There’s a complicated moment, where everything goes still in Jason’s head, and he fills up with white noise, and he watches Bucky shout something at Steve, but he doesn’t really understand what it means until Dick Grayson’s standing between them, hands held up, and Jason realizes that there is someone here who’ll tell Nat to close the portal so he doesn’t have to.

                “This isn’t World War II, Steve,” Bucky’s yelling. “We don’t leave people behind anymore.”

                Even Jason flinches at that, but Steve holds his ground, shoulders set. He’s motionless for a second and then he looks to Jason. “You want me to call it?” he asks.

                And then, before Jason can figure out if he’s going to say _Fuck you_ or _Yes_ first _,_ the Iron Man suit falls backwards out of the sky, and Jason’s legs do some unhelpful bullshit where they collapse beneath him, and he ends up on one knee on the ground, feeling like he’s about a half second away from throwing up.

                “Nat,” he says, but the portal is already closing.

                “He’s not slowing down,” Nat says, and there’s a mess in her voice, all kinds of tangles Coulson’s going to need to unravel. Jason hadn’t thought about the cost for her, alone on the Tower, waiting for the order to seal up Tony’s tomb.

                All around him, Jason’s fliers take to the sky.

                It’s going to be complete, absolute bullshit if Tony makes it all the way home just to die on impact.

                Bucky drags Jason to his feet, and they’re both watching, holding tight to each other, as Tony hurtles toward the ground.

                Riley catches him first, and there’s a horrible noise over the comms as he does it, a striking impact and a noise that’s too choked-off to be a scream. Riley’s wings flare straight out, slowing the descent, but the suit is four hundred pounds of weight dragging him straight down.

                Rhodey gets there next, catches up just in time to bring the momentum to a survivable level, and all three of them hit the ground harder than they should.

                It’s a race, after that, to get to them. Jason leaps over crashed cars and shoulders his way through debris. He follows a path that the Hulk clears for him, and, when he arrives, Bucky by his side, he sees Riley and Rhodey and the Hulk crouched over the unmoving Iron Man.

                “Hulk,” Riley says, “buddy, pal, get that faceplate off for me, huh?”

                Riley’s left shoulder is badly dislocated; he’s leaning over Tony anyway, and he doesn’t give ground until Sam wings in beside him.

                The Hulk pops the faceplate off the suit, and Tony’s face is empty and lax beneath it. The arc reactor is dark in his chest.

                “Fuck that,” Jason says. Because it’s not fair. Because it’s _bullshit_.

                Nine years ago, Tony Stark kidnapped Red Hood and the Winter Soldier at gunpoint and imprisoned them in his basement lab. He took them, and he doesn’t get to give up on them now. It’s taken Jason his whole Goddamn life to understand that he doesn’t come with a return policy, and Tony doesn’t get to leave him now. He _doesn’t_.

                “Wake _the fuck_ up, Tony!” he yells and kicks the suit, hard, in the ribs.

                It’s not his finest moment. But, a second later, Tony’s eyes snap open, and he heaves in a deep, desperate breath, and so Jason doesn’t regret it at all.

                “Fuck,” Tony says. “ _Fuck_ , Jason, you couldn’t’ve kissed me? Jesus.”

                Jason drops to ground beside him, grinning wide and stupid with how relieved he is. “You leave me behind on this planet again,” he says, “and I’ll kick you in the balls next time.”

                “Bullshit you would,” Tony says, breathless and wide-eyed, still stunned. “Bullshit. You love my balls.”

                “I love _you_ , you asshole,” Jason says. “And you tried to take you away from me.”

                “Sorry,” Tony tells him. “I had to save the world. Can you kiss me now?”

                Jason raises his eyebrows. “Are you gonna try to leave me again?”

                Tony swallows. His eyes cut to Bucky over Jason’s shoulder and then settle back on Jason’s face. “Not unless I have to,” he says.

                Which is fair. Which is fine. Which is the best promise any of them can make, really, because they chose a mission when they chose each other, and Jason understands the weight of that mission, knowns better than most what the cost can be. But he is immensely, immeasurably glad that the cost doesn’t have to be paid today.

                He hooks a hand around the back of the helmet, tips Tony’s face up, and kisses him. He tastes blood on his tongue, but that could be either one of them. When he pulls back, he’s so lightheaded that he’s damn near dizzy.

                “Bucky,” he says, “Buck, get down here.”

                Bucky hits his knees beside them, and there’s still something half-frozen in his eyes. He goes back to chrysalis every time he gets cut deep. It’s alright. They have time to draw him out.

                Jason kisses him, careful, gentle. Bucky kisses back like someone just waking up, uncoordinated and sweet.

                “I thought you were gone,” Bucky says, when Jason pulls back. He’s staring down at Tony. “I thought you left.”

                “Sorry,” Tony says, as he shoves himself up on one elbow to get closer to Bucky. “I’m back now.”

                Bucky tips his head forward, and they don’t kiss so much as they press their foreheads together and breath for several long, drawn-out seconds.

                The moment is ruined by the yelping sound Riley makes when Sam pops his shoulder back into place. “ _God_ ,” Riley says. “Fuck. I swear, Wilson, I put on pants, and you suddenly forget what gentle means.”

                “Stop bitching,” Sam says. “You caught a tank with your _hand_.”

                Jason looks around, tracks his team.

                Sam’s crouched over Riley, hand curled around his jaw, tipping Riley’s face up so he can look hard into his eyes and reading something in the strained, shakey grin Riley gives him that makes his expression darken. Tim and Clint are standing next to each other, and there’s a dark patch of blood seeping through Tim’s uniform on his lower left side that Clint hasn’t even seemed to notice yet, which indicates pretty fucking clearly that they both need to be benched, immediately.

                Bruce and Dick look tired, but steady. Thor and the Hulk look about the same.

                Steve is standing away from everyone else, shield in hand, staring at the three of them like a kid stuck outside on Christmas. When he catches Jason looking, he ducks his head, spins his shield, falls into a braced stance.

                The Mark Five, no longer smoking, arrives with Natasha, who’s sharp-eyed and quiet the way she gets on missions that have managed to personally piss her off. She’s holding Loki’s staff in her hands.

                Rhodes, who’s still in full War Machine armor, is staring up at the Tower like he knows exactly who’s responsible for putting his best friend on the ground with his armor in pieces around him.

                “Alright,” Jason says, standing up. He tugs that dagger he’s been keeping for Loki free from its sheath. “Let’s go have a chat with our least favorite Asgardian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For future reference, I post fic updates and warnings about late chapters on [tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/). So if I ever go missing again, check there first.


	16. Chapter 16

                They take the freight elevator up. It’s massive, built to accommodate Tony’s projects, but it’s still uncomfortably overcrowded until the Hulk abruptly retreats with a discontented grumble, and Bruce Banner is left standing there, pressed up against one wall, completely naked.

                “Oh God,” Banner says, with a sort of resigned humiliation. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry.”

                “Hey, man,” Riley says, with a friendly nod. “Don’t worry about it. I’m Riley. I’d shake your hand, but…”

                But Banner’s hands are currently busy covering his dick, which Jason, for one, thinks is a much better use of them.

                “Ah, Dr. Banner,” Thor says, with the surprised warmth of a man running into an old friend at a party. “Welcome back. Your creature did very well.”

                “That’s, um. Great.” Banner shifts uncomfortably and then pins an almost painfully hopeful look on Thor. “Do you—Thor, if I could possibly borrow your cape again, I would--- ah. Thanks.”

                The elevator dings open right as Banner finishes adjusting. He looks ridiculous, red-faced and tousled, with a crimson cape wrapped around himself. He looks like a civilian who didn’t want to be here and showed up anyway.

                “Don’t worry about it, Doc,” Jason says. He jerks his thumb toward Dick. “You’re still better dressed than that asshole.”

                Dick smirks and doesn’t look the least bit bothered by this unflattering assessment of his sartorial decisions. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, as he slides out into the hallway. “You’re the first to have any complaints, Jaybird.”

                “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Jason says, as he follows. “The second you put on a skintight suit with its own six-pack is the second you lost all credibility.”

                “Yeah,” Riley says. “I, for one, _still_ can’t figure out where I’m supposed to slip my twenties.”

                Riley’s pale and sweating, wings fully retracted and left arm held tight to his body. And yet, when Banner makes a soft, choked-off noise and shoots Riley an incredulous look, Riley still manages to summon the wherewithal to tip him a truly ridiculous wink.

                Jason really needs to find a way to get Sam and Riley shifted over to SHIELD on a more permanent basis. His team could use the air support. Also, he’d pay good money to watch the inevitable showdown between Riley and HR.

                “Okay,” Jason says, regrouping, settling into the second round of this fight. “Riley, Sam, Barton, Robin, hang back. Banner, you’re with them. If Loki gets past us, I need you to get real mad about that. Rhodes, Bucky, Cap, you’re with me. We’re gonna go--”

                “Oh,” Banner says. There’s real significance to that syllable. Everyone turns to look at him, and he shifts, barefoot, damn near bare-chested, and risking baring more with every move he makes. “He’s not, uh. He’s not in great shape.”

                “Who isn’t?” Tony asks, nonplussed.

                “The hell does that mean?” Jason adds.

                “Loki,” Banner says, looking faintly embarrassed. “I kinda—well, the other guy, he came up here earlier. Sorry, Thor. Your brother talks a lot.”

                Thor blinks and then nods. “Yes,” he says. “Indeed, he does. It’s what he’s known for.”

                “Is he dead?” Jason asks, because he feels like this is something Banner should’ve mentioned before they hauled their battle-worn asses all the way up here.

                “No.” Banner hesitates before he shakes his head, like maybe he’s not ready to fully commit to that answer. “I mean, he wasn’t. He’s kinda—well, he’s in the floor.”

                “He’s in,” Jason repeats, “the _floor_.”

                Banner shrugs, hands held up, once again jeopardizing the stability of his cape-toga. “Sorry?” he offers.

                “Goddamn,” Riley says, punching Banner’s shoulder with his good hand. “You wreck the place, put a guy through the floor, and show up naked to the afterparty. What a fucking legend.”

                “Uh,” Banner says, blinking at him. “Thanks.”

                “Floor’s a good place for him,” Clint says. He’s got one arm around Tim, steadying him, but the fingers of his other hand curl up, like they’re itching for the weight of a string.

                “Definitely,” Natasha agrees. “It’ll make it much harder for him to dodge.”

                “Is that what we’re doing?” Rhodes asks. “Is this an execution?”

                “No,” Thor says. “It is not.”

                “Oh, right. I forgot we were having that fight.” Jason gives Thor a searching look. “You really want to champion clemency when that shithead almost killed us all?”

                Thor sighs. His shoulders slump for a second, falling from their typical, well-bred, space royalty posture. He looks tired. It’s the most human he’s seemed, or maybe it’s just the first part of his humanity that’s resonated with Jason.

                “He is my brother,” Thor says. “Whatever else he is, whatever he’s forgotten, he is still my brother. And I will not abandon him, no matter how far afield he goes.”

                “Jesus,” Jason says. “Too bad he just damn near got Tony killed, huh? Maybe that speech would’ve worked.”

                Thor looks to Tony, who’s still a little wild around the eyes and hasn’t said much since they got him to his feet. “I apologize,” Thor says. “I do not know what drove my brother to this. I know that he is no conqueror, and that was a conqueror’s army.”

                “Sure as hell looked like a conqueror,” Steve says, “when he put all those people on their knees in Germany.”

                “He craves power,” Thor says. “But he steals it. We do not possess an abundance of discipline, my brother and I. He could not build an army like that. Not in the time he had.”

                “So are we killing him or not?” Sam asks. “Look, I just want to be clear before we go in, because I don’t know if any of you noticed, but there are some people on this team who really excel at murder.”

                “We don’t say that word in front of Batman,” Jason says. “He’s allergic. He’ll start sneezing sanctimonious bullshit all over you.”

                “Jesus, Todd,” Riley says, wide-eyed. “You can’t talk about him that way. He’s _Batman_.”

                “I can talk about him however the hell I want,” Jason says. “He’s my—he’s.” He falters, sends a sideways glance to Bruce, who’s looking equally as unprepared for however the hell that sentence’s supposed to end. “He’s an asshole,” Jason concludes, because at least that much is true.

                “Sure,” Sam says, slowly. “A guy who shows up last minute to help you save the world. Sounds like a real asshole.”

                “Leave it, Sam,” Natasha advises. “He _is_ an asshole.”

                Which reminds Jason, very suddenly, that Natasha is still pissed at Bruce because of whatever’s going on between him and Coulson. And that makes Jason think about Coulson, laid up in a hospital bed, unable to lead this mission because Loki _opened up his back_ with a fucking spear.

                Loki tried to murder Phil Coulson, who’s done nothing but fight to protect vulnerable people since Jason met him. Coulson, who offered to help _Jason_ , back when he was just a shithead loner without a team, without anyone at all.

                Jason can feel the Pit beating behind his eyes. He shoves it back, leashes it.

                “The only threat you can control,” he says, “is the one that doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t want to leave him walking. He almost got this whole city killed. He came after my _team_. Nobody gets to do that twice.”

                “Loki opened a door,” Tony says. He sounds strained. The suit’s damaged, probably weighing on him heavier than usual, and there’s an unsteady look in his eyes that Jason hasn’t seen since Afghanistan. “There were a lot of things waiting behind that door. I’d like to know who called that party. And what the endgame was.”

                “If that’s going to happen again,” Rhodes says, “we need to know now. Because we were in no way prepared for it.”

                Jason stares at the grim set of faces around him. “I cannot fucking believe,” he says, “that I invited all of you to my god-killing party, and now you’re all bitching out on me.”

                “Jason,” Tony says. “I didn’t see an end to them. They were _everywhere_.”

                Jason hisses out an aggrieved breath and turns his eyes on Clint. The archer’s still standing with his arm looped around Tim’s waist, but he’s gone listless, eyes tracking nothing. Looking inward. Remembering, maybe.

                “Barton,” he says. “He was in your head. What’s your call?”

                Clint swallows. His eyes go to the spear in Nat’s hands and then to Thor and then back to the floor. After a long moment, he looks up at Jason. “Doesn’t make any sense to kill him,” he says. “If they’ve got a whole fleet waiting, burning a bridge isn’t gonna stop them. Better to use it to flank them.”

                Natasha passes Loki’s spear to Sam and then walks over to Clint, hooks her fingers under his chin. “I’ll kill him for you,” she says. “After, if you want. Once he’s no longer useful.”

                Thor straightens up, opens his mouth like he thinks anyone in this room is particularly interested in his opinions at this moment, and Dick elbows him hard in the ribs, shakes his head with that familiar _we’ll talk later_ face he usually trots out on Jason when Bruce is getting especially shrill about justice.

                Clint tips his head forward, rests his forehead against Natasha’s. “I’m not gonna let him make me kill anyone else, Nat.”

                She tuts at him. “Yes,” she says, “that’s why I said _I_ would do it.”

                “God,” Banner says, clearing his throat. “Is she always like that?”

                “Hot, right?” Riley says, sending a lovesick look Natasha’s direction that is, frankly, an absolute embarrassment. He looks like a Disney princess on the verge of swooning, although Jason will begrudgingly grant that the swooning might be due to the pain he’s in.

                “Sure,” Banner says, with an element of reservation in his tone. “That’s, uh. That’s one potentially valid interpretation.”

                “C’mon, you fucking buzzkills,” Jason says, deeply aggrieved. “Let’s go do some due process bullshit on this mass murdering fuck.”

 

 

 

                Half an hour later, they whole team is sprawled around the penthouse. Loki’s still stuck in the floor, thanks primarily to the hammer Thor left on his chest, and Natasha is settled cross-legged next to him with Bruce beside her. They’re interrogating him in a constant, constrained monotone that Loki seems to find simultaneously offensive and alarming.

                “Hell of a good cop, bad cop,” Grayson notes, when he wanders over to join Jason by the broken window that Loki threw Tony out of a couple hours back.

                “This is such bullshit,” Jason says. He casts a dark glance their direction, and he’s only slightly mollified to see the way Natasha is flipping Talia’s knife one-handed, holding it so that, if she misses her catch, it’s going to stab Loki directly in the throat.

                Dick’s quiet for a moment and then his mouth presses flat, and he turns his back on the room, staring hard out the window.  “Kinda nice through, right?” he asks. “Ending it without all the blood.”

                “Still a hell of a lot of blood,” Jason says, thinking about Coulson again. About the blood that spread across the floor, about the way Coulson had looked at him, when Jason curled a hand around the cut in his side and tried to hold him together. “All this means is, when he comes back for round two, he’s gonna have a better idea of how to win.”

                Dick looks across the room, to where Thor and Steve and Banner are all sitting together. Banner’s dressed in a mashup of closets, wearing one of Tony’s bandshirts and Bucky’s jeans, rolled up twice at the ankle. Thor and Steve are drinking the whiskey Tony passed around earlier, and Banner’s drinking water and looking about five seconds away from slumping unconscious right into Thor’s lap.

                “You really think that?” Dick asks. He sounds strange. Vulnerable, maybe. And Dick walks around with his heart on display, practically daring anyone who looks at him to break it, but it’s not often that Jason sees this kind of doubt running so close to the surface. “You think, once someone turns like that, there’s no bringing them back?”

                Jason blinks. _The Joker’s in a coma_ , he thinks and glances over to where Tim’s sprawled out on a table, Clint hovering off to the side, while Sam puts a neat line of stitches in the cut down near Tim’s hip.

                “There’s shit people don’t come back from,” Jason says, finally.

                “You did,” Dick counters, almost wistful.

                “Go fuck yourself. I was never Loki. I was never the _Joker_.”

                “I know that,” Dick says, and the only thing that saves him from getting dropped right out of the window is that he sounds like he genuinely believes it. “But do you ever think about what you would do now, if someone showed up, put a dozen heads in a duffle bag, and tried to kill Bruce? Tried to kill _Tim_?”

                “I didn’t try to kill Tim,” Jason says, although, even now, he’s not sure what exactly he’d been trying to do. That wasn’t a good time for him. The Pit scrambled him up, and it took years to calm the tempest in his head.

                “Okay,” Dick says, like it doesn’t really matter what Jason’s intentions were. Like he’s ready to forgive him either way. Like he already _has_. “But that’s what I think about.”

                “I heard you put the Joker in a coma,” Jason says, because he doesn’t do this Bat bullshit. He doesn’t dance around the subject. It’s better to lance a wound than let it fester. Hell, it’s better to _cauterize_ a wound, whatever the cost.

                “Yeah,” Dick says. That weird expression has gotten worse. He reaches up to rub at his face, and, when he’s done, he looks like himself again, and that sets off alarm bells, because, whatever else Dick is, he’s never been much of a liar. “Sure did, Jaybird. Did the same thing to him that he did to you. Beat a weaker person unconscious and then kept going. How’s that for heroics?”

                “Pretty fucking great,” Jason says. “From the perspective of someone who’s glad it wasn’t Tim.”

                Dick smiles, but it looks like something he borrowed from Bruce. Too grim, too controlled. Doesn’t fit right on his face. “We’re supposed to be a little better than that, Jay.”

                Jason sighs. “Someday,” he says, “you and Bats are gonna learn how to cut yourselves a fucking break. Sometimes it’s good enough just to live through it, Grayson.”

                Dick shrugs. He stares at Jason for another second and then he flips, goes bright like someone pulling the shades at dusk, reflecting light instead of letting darkness through. He turns back toward the rest of the room and tips his head toward where Tony is perched on the bar, dressed in jeans and an SI shirt, sipping his way through his whiskey while Bucky very carefully re-applies the series of butterfly bandages on Tony’s cheek that came loose in the fight.

                “Good point, Jay,” he says. “Guess you’ve got a lot to live for.”

                Jason can _feel_ them, like strings anchored straight into the center of him, tugging him along. Every time he falters, every time he’s lost, he can feel them. Nine years in, and he still doesn’t have words for how they make him feel. He’s never really felt it before them.

                Or maybe he did, and he couldn’t understand it.

                Maybe he’s tied to a half-dozen different people in this room, and he didn’t know how to feel that until they taught him. Maybe you can’t feel things like that until someone teaches you.

                He’d kill every god in Asgard for the smile Tony shares with Bucky, for the soft, open way Bucky smiles back.

                He’d fight every single Chitauri warrior, cut his way through every leviathan, for the way Tony casually hooks his leg around the back of Bucky’s thigh when Bucky tries to pull away to get more bandages.

                “Yeah,” Jason says, feeling doomed, feeling perfectly, unbelievably lucky. “Guess I do.”

                “Hey,” Tony says, loud enough to catch the whole room’s attention. He slides off the bar and jerks his thumb over his shoulder, back toward the wreck of the city. “Anyone want shawarma? I saw a place that looked open when I was, you know. Falling to my death.”

                “Oh, hell yeah,” Riley says, struggling up from where he’s been napping on a couch. “Hey, Wilson, finish with that patch job. It’s time to eat.”

                Riley’s enthusiasm drags the rest of the team to their feet. Jason hesitates and then falls in, because, if his whole team is going, he’d better go with them, keep them out of trouble.

                “What’s the plan for that asshole?” he asks, tipping his chin toward Loki.

                “Don’t trouble yourself,” Thor says. “I have a plan.”

 

 

 

                Phil Coulson calls about five minutes after the food arrives.

                Loki’s on the cluttered floor of the restaurant, hammer on his chest again, but at least his constant bitching has stopped ever since Nat gagged him with a series of napkins tied together. Thor’s keeping an eye on him, in-between shoveling truly momentous amounts of food in his mouth and jumping up to help the restaurant owners shift another massive piece of debris.  

                Steve and Dick run the same worn track, barely managing to put food in their mouths before they’re leaping out the shattered window to help some lost civilian or pick up another fallen piece of masonry for the waitress.

                Clint and Tim are semi-conscious, propped together, working their way through the food with their eyes closed. Nat and Sam are monitoring them, and Riley was doing the same thing, right up until someone put food in front of him, and he seemed to abruptly lose track of every single thing in the world that wasn’t immediately edible.

                Banner and Rhodey are dead-eyed and determined, chewing methodically. Every now and then they’ll lift their heads and rediscover each other and then they’ll continue some kind of physics discussion that would maybe even make sense, if they could string more than five syllables together at a time.

                Bruce is gone. He disappeared sometime after he took the freight elevator down with the rest of them. He’s probably off digging bodies out of the rubble with the first responders.

                Batman never sleeps, never eats, never takes a Goddamn break.

                Well, Jason’s glad that he stopped trying to be Batman more than a decade back.

                “Hey, Phil,” he says, into the phone. “You finally decide to stop lazing around, get back to work?”

                “Absolutely not,” Coulson says. “I was calling to ask you to pick up a to go order for me.”

                “Sure,” Jason says. “We’re at a shawarma place. You want anything? You could also order off-menu and ask for Loki’s head on a platter.”

                “Yes, I heard he was still alive.” Phil sounds surprised and a little curious, but not at all hurt. Which is probably for the best, because if there was any indication that Phil’s feelings about Jason not killing Loki even vaguely mirrored Jason’s feelings about Bruce not killing the Joker, Jason would make a second, bloodier mess in this restaurant. “I thought that was an interesting development.”

                “Yeah,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. “There’s this theory that maybe he was working for someone else.”

                Phil’s quiet for a moment. “I see,” he says. “Yes, I’d like to know more about that.”

                Jason huffs out a persecuted breath. “That was the consensus.”

                “Hm.” Phil, because he’s Phil, doesn’t point out that there was a time when Jason didn’t wait for a consensus about anything other than where to bury the bodies after he’d already made them. “Where’s Barton on this?”

                Jason looks across the table at Clint, who’s staring back at him, bleary-eyed but focused. “He called it,” Jason says, because, no matter how much sense it made, no matter how much it hamstrung them to kill their only available source of information, if Clint had asked him to kill Loki, Jason would’ve opened his throat without hesitation.

                “Good,” Phil says.

                “I’ll kill him for you, too,” Jason says. “Just to be clear.”

                “Yes, thank you. I thought you would.” Phil doesn’t ask, though, so Jason settles back into his chair and makes a grab for Tony’s water.

                “Jason,” Phil says, a second later. “Millions of people who should be dead are alive right now, because of you and your team.”

                Jason blinks. His brain stutters out for a second. The _weight_ of that. The risk they’d pushed back, by positioning themselves in front of it, by flying a nuke into a hole in the sky, by putting the people they loved the most at risk to save strangers they’ll never meet.

                “Oh, you know,” Jason says, setting the water back down. “It’s just that we’re all a bunch of show-offs, Phil. We’re just trying to make you proud.”

                It’s a joke until he says it, and then he wants, immediately, to take it back.

                “Well,” Phil says. “Good job on that, as well.”

                “I gotta go,” Jason says, and Bucky takes the phone right out of his hand, launches into a perfectly level, reasonable discussion while Tony leans into Jason, presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw.

                “Hey,” Jason says, and his hands aren’t shaking, _he’s_ not shaking, but he feels like he’s on the edge of coming apart anyway. “Hey, Tony,” he says, “you almost died today.”

                “Don’t do that.” Tony kisses him again, on his chin, his cheek, the exact center of his forehead. “I came back. There’s no army that’s going to keep me away from the two of you.”

                Jason closes his eyes, breathes out. He feels his team around him, feels Tony and Bucky, bracketing him. They’re safe until they aren’t, but he wouldn’t bet against them. Standing together, Jason can’t think of a single force in the universe that could break them apart.

                “Yeah,” he says. “Especially if we murder the fuck out of them before they become a problem.”

                Tony grins at him, sharp and dangerous. There’s a glint of iron in his eyes that Jason first saw nine years ago, on that very first night they met, and he hasn’t been able to look away from it since. “That’s what we do best,” he says.

                Beside him, Bucky shifts, curls his hand around Jason’s thigh, feels real and solid and strong. “SHIELD’s started cleanup down on 39th,” he says, as he hands the phone back to Jason. “Debrief’s in two hours.”

                The city still smells like smoke. There’s the echo of sirens, people yelling in the distance.

                Jason wants to put his head down on this table and sleep until someone cleans the whole mess up for him. For a second, for two seconds, he’s still. And then he gets back to work.

                “Alright,” he says, climbing to his feet. “We’ve got two hours. Banner, Rhodes, and Tony, you’re in charge of retrieving the Tesseract and getting Selvig and his machine off the roof. Do _not_ get to playing mad scientist. Rhodes, for the love of God, please remember you’re the adult in the room this time. No one’s forgotten what happened in Detroit.”

                Rhodes, who does not look appropriately ashamed, lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “That city never looked so good,” he says, and Tony reaches across the table to high-five him in an absolutely shameless display of insubordination.

                Jason looks away before the charm can show on his face. “Nightwing, you sticking around?”

                Grayson blinks up at him, glances around the table, and then shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “Cleared my schedule back when I thought we were all going to die.”

                “Prudent,” Thor says, approvingly.

                “Christ,” Jason says, a bit more taken aback. “You’re back on rescue duty with Cap and Bucky. Sam and Nat, same thing.”

                Steve and Bucky share a strained look that Jason’s going to have to work on later, but he knows, for now, that they can focus on the task at hand.

                “Thor and Barton,” he continues, “you’re with me. Let’s get Loki into containment and then take Riley and Robin to Medical.”

                The team climbs to their feet with varying levels of enthusiasm. On his way to the door, Riley swipes leftovers off Sam’s plate and shoves them into his mouth. Clint helps Robin to his feet and then slips his arm around him again, careful of his stitches. Thor hefts his hammer in one hand and Loki in the other, still chewing his way through the last of his meal as he heads for the door.

                “See you in a couple hours,” Tony says, as he leans in to press a quick kiss to Jason’s cheek.

                “No mad scientist bullshit, Tony,” Jason says. “I mean it.”

                “Yeah, yeah,” Tony says, with discomforting disregard. “You love my mad scientist bullshit.”

                “Of course he does,” Bucky says, darting in to press his own kiss to Jason’s other cheek. “He just doesn’t want to miss it.”

                Jason doesn’t want to miss anything these two disasters do for the rest of their lives. He doesn’t see any reason to bring that up. Judging by the way they’re looking at him, they’re both well aware.

                “Fuck you both,” Jason says. He tries not to roll his eyes when his tone makes it sound like _I love you_.

                “Later,” Bucky says.

                “Promises, promises,” Tony says, a second later.

                Jason rubs at his face to keep from smiling like a moron and then turns toward the door. “Alright, Avengers,” he says, as he steps out into the street, boots crunching on broken glass. “Let’s go be heroes.”


	17. Epilogue

                Four weeks after his failed attempt to conquer earth and his wildly successful campaign to piss off everyone on the planet, Loki returns to Asgard. The SHIELD interrogators are getting nowhere, and even Wonder Woman, who arrives with her lasso and her god-tier disapproval, can’t compel Loki to speak a truth he’s disinclined to share. So it’s back to Asgard, in Thor’s custody, with Bruce Banner tagging along, ostensibly to do additional research on the Tesseract.

                Jason privately thinks Banner’s celestial vacation has more to do with the overall hardiness of Asgardians and the fact that he is not currently wanted for destroying any cities on Asgard. And then there’s also the way Banner lights up every time Thor looks at him.

                The team’s scattered, down two more peripheral members now that Banner and Thor are gone, and it’s just Jason, Clint, Nat, and Coulson standing in the empty courtyard, staring at the place where Loki, Thor, and Banner used to be.

                “Alright,” Jason says, rocking back on his heels. “Guess that’s it for the going away party.”

                They’re splintering even further.

                Clint’s on a minimum of two months’ leave. He was in SHIELD custody until two weeks ago, being investigated for the murders he committed under Loki’s control. Coulson’s still dealing with all the complaints the Internal Affairs Division filed about the “intentionally threatening” behaviors Natasha, Bucky, and Jason engaged in around SHIELD HQ while they conducted their assessment, but Clint’s been cleared on all charges.

                He still has a psych eval and about fifteen tons of paperwork to file before he’ll be brought back into the field, and, for once, he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. He’s going up to Blüdhaven with Tim, on what Jason is very deliberately not thinking of as some kind of appalling couples’ retreat _._

                Nat and Coulson are staying in D.C. to keep an eye on things and to continue their ongoing war with the Air Force and the Army to steal Rhodes, Sam, and Riley. Maria Hill left four days ago to attend negotiations in person. Given the sheer about of public good will SHIELD’s been wielding since they saved the whole damn world, Jason gives it another week or so, tops, before at least two of them are added to the roster.

                “Be careful,” Jason says, when he’s tossing Clint’s bag into the back of Tim’s ridiculous sports car. “If you drive this thing into Blüdhaven, it’ll get stolen out from underneath you.”

                “This from a Crime Alley kid?” Tim says. “Interesting.”

                “Look after him,” Jason says, to Clint. “Rich kids don’t have any fucking survival instincts.”

                “Oh, yeah,” Clint says, with a soft smile. “That’s what I’ve got. An overabundance of survival instincts.”

                “Jesus,” Jason says. “If you get into trouble, call me. I will make fun of you for _years_ , but I’ll save your ass.”

                “Thanks, Jay,” Clint says. He’s getting better. There are still moments where he gets caught, hears an echo of something in his head, and then he’ll go still and quiet in the wrong sort of way, less Hawkeye on watch and more meatpuppet waiting for orders. But there’s less and less of that now.

                And he’s more settled in his skin when Tim’s around. It’s horrifying to realize, but they’re good for each other, so Jason does his best to forgive Clint for his absolute lack of taste.

                He waves when they leave, and Natasha steps up next to him to watch them go. “Feels weird,” Jason tells her. “Splitting up like this.”

                 “In the future,” Coulson says, “it might be easier to coordinate assembling this team if they happened to live within a hundred miles of each other.”

                Coulson’s recovery is on track. He’s in physical therapy, and he’s very diligent about it. He’s been walking unassisted for a week or so now, and, as usual, he’s as steady as they need him to be. But he’s getting pale under all that stoicism, and Jason doesn’t need him to be steady right now.

                “Get back to bed, old man,” Jason tells him. “Nat, take him home.”

                Nat and Clint have been staying at Coulson’s place, like it’s five years ago all over again. Jason approves of that. They’re dangerous people, all of them. But he’s still a little messed up about how easily they lost Clint, and he doesn’t want any of them alone.

                He’s trying to be reasonable about it, but he doesn’t like how wide the net of his team is being cast. New York, D.C., Asgard, and Blüdhaven. It’s fine, and he knows that. But he doesn’t want this long-term.

                “You worry too much,” Coulson tells him.

                “You’re going to get high blood pressure,” Nat adds.

                “I hate both of you,” Jason says, and they smile at him, amused, indulgent. Completely and utterly skeptical.

                He leaves before he does something embarrassing, like ask them to move to New York.

 

 

 

                He takes a bike back to New York, because he wants the time to clear his head, and Dick Grayson shows up two traffic lights away from the Tower, falling in beside him on something that looks like a shared hallucination between Ducati and Wayne Enterprises. There is entirely too much exposed chrome to take the bike seriously, but Jason’s still pretty sure he’s going to end up stealing it as soon as Dick turns his back.

                Dick’s timing is wonderfully convenient, which means it was probably calculated. There’s a good chance Dick’s been in town for hours and didn’t feel like going to the Tower without him, which isn’t exactly reminiscent of the egregiously outgoing Dick Grayson he’s known for years.

                “Hey,” Jason says, when they pull into the basement garage and Dick emerges from underneath his stupid blue helmet. “Appreciate you making the trip.”

                Dick grins over at him, and the warmth of that smile almost manages to make it all the way to his eyes. “Who’d say no? It’s been years since I took time off.”

                “Not sure babysitting duty qualifies as time off,” Jason says, although Steve doesn’t need a babysitter so much as he needs a lifeguard. Maybe they both need lifeguards.

                “It’s a road trip with Captain America.” Dick smirks around the words _Captain America_ , and Jason busies himself putting his bike to rest so he doesn’t have to think too deeply about what that particular expression implies. “It’s gonna be a party.”

                Nothing about Steve Rogers is a party. He’s been haunting the Tower since the Battle of New York. He speaks when he’s spoken to, and he helps whoever asks, and he’s been out for hours every day, helping with the cleanup. Now that the City’s more or less pieced itself back together, he’s been wandering like a ghost without a reason for sticking around.

                A week ago, he told them over dinner that he was leaving, alone, to travel up and down the coast and then make his way inland, see the heartland, go all the way to California, maybe. He’d seemed less like a man planning a vacation and more like one who’s slowly become convinced that he’s in the way, that he needs to find somewhere else to belong because he doesn’t belong here.

                “Great,” Jason had said, without consulting anyone. “Take Nightwing with you. He’s being fucking gloomy, and, frankly, Batman’s got that shit cornered.”

                And then, somehow, Clint and Tim were planning to cover Blüdhaven and Natasha was leaving pointed messages on Dick’s phone about the importance of one’s patriotic duty and the need to protect living national treasures, and now here’s Dick Grayson, maskless, out of uniform, strolling right out of the elevator to shake Steve Roger’s hand.

                “Hey,” he says, with a wide, effortless smile. “Nice to see you out of uniform, Cap. I’m Dick Grayson.”

                “Oh,” Steve says. He’s startled for a second, which is an odd look on him. “Steve’s fine,” he says, recovering, and they shake hands like morons, like old people.

                They deserve each other, Jason thinks. They’re going to adventure around the nation, rescuing trapped kittens and imperiled preschoolers and nuns having car trouble. And Jason is deeply, immensely grateful that he doesn’t have to go along, but he’s still, somehow, a little sad to see them go.

                “You all packed?” Dick asks. Which is a fair question, probably, if you’re not dealing with Steve Rogers, who packed at dawn, shortly after his first five-mile run of the day. “Need help carrying your bag?”

                “Please do that,” Tony says, perking up. “Please carry his bag for him.”

                “Don’t let him exert himself,” Bucky advises. “He has asthma.”

                “I’ve got it,” Steve says, directing a flat look at Bucky. “Thanks.”

                Bucky grins back at him. “Have fun, Stevie,” he says. “Stay out of trouble.”

                “If Dick tries to take you to a strip club,” Jason says, “remember you don’t actually have to dance, and he’s just saying that because he thinks it’ll be funny. And maybe because he needs the gas money.”

                “Oh, c’mon, Jay,” Dick says, with a winning smile. “As if I’d ever let someone else steal my time in the spotlight.”

                That, Jason thinks, is an excellent point. And also a very sobering mental image.

                Steve’s giving Dick a cautious sideways look, like he’s not sure how he feels about spending a prolonged period of time in Dick’s company. That’s normal. Dick can be pretty overwhelming. But he’s got a good heart and a breathtaking left hook, and Jason, at least, feels entirely comfortable leaving them in each other’s company.

                Because Dick needs something to focus on that isn’t whatever moral crises he’s having, and Steve needs something to distract him from how much has disappeared out of his life.

                And Jason needs Steve to clear the hell out of the Tower for a while so he can have Tony and Bucky all to himself.

                “See you around, Cap,” Jason says. “Remember to keep that phone on you.”

                “You can call,” Steve tells him. He says it to Jason, but he’s looking at Bucky. “I’ll come back. If something comes up--”

                “Saved the world plenty of times without you, pal,” Bucky tells him. He hugs Steve quickly, musses up his perfectly combed hair. “I’ll call if we need you.”

                “Okay,” Steve says. He seems lost for a second and then he scoops his bag off the ground and nods at Tony. “Thanks,” he says. “Take care.”

                They’ve had a lot of fraught conversations, those two. It’s been worse ever since Steve figured out how quickly Tony sent his lawyers to go fight the U.S. Army for all of Steve’s backpay. It’s like they’re diffusing a bomb every time they speak more than a few words to each other, like they’re trapped in some stalemate of wanting to apologize and not feeling worthy of being forgiven.

                They need time apart. They all do.

                Some things are good, even if they feel wrong at the time. Jason has to keep reminding himself that not every goodbye is forever.

                “C’mon, Steve,” Dick says, as he steals Steve’s bag right out of his hands and tosses it over his shoulder. “You decide if you wanna go north or south yet?”

                “I can carry that,” Steve says, as he falls in beside Dick and makes a grab for the bag. “Really. I can--”

                Dick shuffles the bag to his other shoulder and expertly dances out of reach of Steve’s hands. “Because, and I’m not trying to oversell it here, but there’s a barbeque place down in one of the Carolinas that nearly killed me once, and I’m ready for a rematch.”

                “You consider that a selling point?” Steve looks baffled, but weirdly intrigued.

                “But then,” Dick continues thoughtfully, “there’s Maine. Lobsters.”

                “Bye, Stevie,” Bucky calls, and Steve whirls his direction just in time to realize that he’s followed Dick all the way into the elevator, which is now closing.

                They get one last look at his confused expression before the doors close, and he disappears.

                “Jesus,” Jason says. “How long until we get the first call from jail?”

                “I already had JARVIS route money into a bail fund,” Tony tells him. “It’ll be fine.”

                They’re quiet for a second, and it’s not that Steve was an especially lively presence, but Thor and Banner certainly breathed a bit of activity into the place, and now all three of them are gone in a single day.

                Jason’s reminded of exactly how large this Tower is, how many stories away from the ground they are.

                “Hey,” he says, because the idea has been in his head since D.C., and he hasn’t been able to shake it. “What if we brought the whole team here?”

                Tony blinks at him. “Here?” he asks. “The Tower?”

                “Yeah,” Jason says. It doesn’t feel _stupid_ , exactly. It feels like something he’d be embarrassed to say in front of anyone who wasn’t them. Like he was giving away too much, giving a clear shot to some vulnerable part of him he should keep armored up. “You remember team breakfasts at Coulson’s place?”

                It was something of a tradition, when they were all based in D.C. They’d come home from a mission, and they’d all show up at Coulson’s place the next morning, even after Clint and Nat moved out, and he’d make them breakfast, and they’d spend half the day napping on his couches, pretending to write reports while they squabbled over what to order for dinner.

                It made the anxious, hypervigilant comedown a bit easier. Jason could do a pulse check on his entire team just by looking around the room.

                Right now, he’s got people running in every direction, and he wouldn’t know they needed help until after it was too late to give it.

                It’s _fine_.

                But it’d be better if he knew they were all coming home.

                “Plenty of space,” Tony says, still searching Jason’s expression. “Would SHIELD clear it?”

                “We’re the fucking Avengers,” Jason says. “We can be based wherever the hell we want.”

                “That’s the kind of cooperative mindset Coulson’s always talking about,” Bucky says, laughing.

                “I just meant,” Jason says, with all kinds of momentum, and then abruptly finds he’s out of words. He looks between them, not sure how to continue, and then Tony wanders over and looks up at him, smiles at whatever he finds.

                “I get it,” he says. “We can talk to them when they get back.”

                When they look over to Bucky, he shrugs. “What, you think I’m not gonna get it? Howling Commandos, remember? You keep your people close.”

                Nine years ago, Jason didn’t have any people. Now he’s got so many that he’s come up with some insane scheme to con them all into living with him in Tony’s skyscraper in New York.

                But it makes sense. _You keep your people close_.

                It’s not that he needs them, and it’s not that they need him. It’s just that they’re safer, and stronger, and better together than any of them are alone.

                “Although,” Bucky says, as he straightens up, makes his toward them with a look in his eyes that makes Jason lick his lips reflexively, curl his hands around Tony’s hips. “It’ll be nice, just the three of us. For a while.”

                “Oh, hell yes,” Tony says, tipping his head back against Bucky’s shoulder when Bucky brackets him in, traps Tony between the two of them. “This whole only having sex in bedrooms bullshit has been really inconvenient.”

                Jason snorts and shares a brief, indulgent look with Bucky before he leans in to start kissing his way down Tony’s neck. “Sorry for all that suffering, Stark,” he says. “You’ve been a real saint about everything.”

                “I have,” Tony agrees, absolutely shameless. He makes a quiet, knocked-out noise, and Jason can feel Bucky’s hands sliding between them, his thumb hooking into the front of Tony’s jeans. “I saved New York, remember?” Tony tells them, already a little breathless. He squirms between them, rolling his hips, and Jason gets his teeth into the juncture of Tony’s neck and shoulder to keep himself from groaning out loud.

                “Sure did,” Bucky agrees. “Wanna see how proud we are?”

                “Jesus,” Tony says. “Yeah. Yep. Thank you, I would.”

                Jason leans back to study them, takes in the lazy, hungry contentment on Bucky’s face, the careless trust evident in the way Tony’s got his eyes closed and most of his weight leaned back into Bucky.

                He could’ve lost this. He almost did.

                And there’s always the chance that he will, in the future. There’s the looming threat Loki won’t speak about, the faceless enemy that set up this whole nightmare scenario like someone decided to play chess with the lives of everyone Jason cares about.

                He has worries he never would’ve dreamed of, nine years ago. Loaded guns aimed at his heart, ready to fire.

                He wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. He wouldn’t trade these two for the whole Goddamn universe.

                “C’mon,” he says, grabbing at Tony’s ass, lifting him, holding him as close as he can while Tony wraps his legs around his hips. “Let’s celebrate that victory.”

                “Fuck yes,” Tony says, kissing him open-mouthed and fierce. “Saved the world sex,” he says, earnest and sweet, staring into Jason’s eyes like he’s some kind of prize that Tony’s constantly surprised to win. “It’s the best kind.”

                “Yeah,” Jason says, because he wouldn’t argue with a single thing Tony said, looking at him like that. “Best kind.”

                Bucky laughs, low and dry, a little dark with how much want is twisted up in it, and he leans forward to bite at Tony’s neck, presses his mouth right over the mark Jason just put on him, makes Tony moan and arch his back, press his whole body up against Jason’s.

                The world can wait, Jason thinks.

                No matter his good intentions, no matter what better path he’s found to walk, the real reason he fought so hard to save this world is that the two of them are in it. And, if the world needs them, they’ll fight to protect it.

                But, for now, they’ve earned their time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, what a journey. Thanks so much for all of your support! You've all been amazing, and I appreciate every one of you magnificent bastards. 
> 
> That's it for the main arc of this series, but there will be a few spin-offs and one-shots in the future. If you have any specific requests for moments you would like to see, go ahead and mention them in a comment or send me an ask [on my tumblr](https://thepartyresponsible.tumblr.com/), and I'll see what I can do. 
> 
> I'll be taking a break from this series for a bit, but I'll definitely be back. I love this team. Thanks, as always, for reading!


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